Coon-Can--Two Horses; Coon-Can--A Horse Apiece: Two Works

Details

CHARLES MARION RUSSELL (1864-1926)
Coon-Can--Two Horses; Coon-Can--A Horse Apiece: Two Works
each, signed 'CM Russell' and inscribed with artist's skull device (lower left)
each, oil on canvas
the first, 18 x 30 in. (45.7 x 76.2 cm.); the second, 18 x 28 in. (45.7 x 71.1 cm.) (2)

Literature

Montana Illustrated, March 1895, illustrated (as Gambling).
W.J. Grand, Illustrated History of the Union Stockyards, Chicago, Illinois, 1896, pp. 263-64, illustrated.
E. Hough, The Story of the Cowboy, New York, 1897, pp. 257, 261, illustrated (as A Contest of Races and Red Wins).
F. Crissey, "The Adventures of a Pioneer Plainsman," Great Falls Tribune, January 14, 1898, illustrated.
F.G. Renner, "Rangeland Rembrandt: The Incomparable Charles Marion Russell," Montana: The Magazine of Western History, 1955, illustrated, pp. 22, 29.
The Historical Society of Montana, The Works of Charles Marion Russell (1864-1926) in the Permanent Collection of the Historical Society of Montana, Helena, Montana, 1962, p. 4, illustrated.
K. Yost and F.G. Renner, A Bibliography of the Published Works of Charles M. Russell, Lincoln, Nebraska, 1971, pp. 4-5, 54, 87, 90-91, 116, 156, 236.

Lot Essay

Throughout his career, Charles Marion Russell captured, with great enthusiasm and reverence, the trials of life on the open range. As a cowboy artist, his images were derived directly from the experiences he encountered, whether dangerous or amusing, along with his fellow open-range companions. Russell's talent as a storyteller was almost equaled to his talent as a painter.

It has been written that Russell, "in addition to documenting an occupation and incidents he knew . . . [captured] the humor and joy that he saw in the commraderie that these men shared. He looked at their life with the eye of a Romantic but also with a wise understanding of the foibles of fellows and the great adversity they encountered with each work day." (J.K. Broderick, Charles M. Russell: An American Artist, St. Louis, Missouri, 1982, p. 67) Coon-Can--A Horse Apiece and Coon-Can--Two Horses, replete with their details of life on the plains, offer a rarified and amusing glimpse into a memorable past in the history of the West.

Harold McCracken comments about the artist: "A ragged jester and good fellow of the roundup camp, Charlie Russell lived and loved the life of the toughest profession of the early pioneer era in the West. Fate cast him in the incongruous role of artist and poet--a role forced upon him by some inescapable destiny and which for a good many years he seems not to have taken quite seriously. Self-taught, unschooled, and entirely unorthodox in every respect, he was to become one of the most distinguished personalities in the field of western documentary art." (The Charles M. Russell Book, New York, 1957, p. 14)