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Lot Essay
As president of the New York Zoological Society, William Temple Hornaday’s focus was the preservation of America’s natural world, a notion that was of increasing interest to the American public during the first few decades of the 20th century. By 1905 Theodore Roosevelt, forever compassionate about the natural world, assisted in the establishment of the U.S. Forest Service, which was followed by the creation of the National Park Service in 1916. As a friendship blossomed between Hornaday and Carl Rungius, established in part by Hornaday’s early purchase of Wary Game (1909, Private Collection) for the Zoological Society, a project developed that was focused on the Society’s goals of conservation though the education of the general public. In 1913 the New York Zoological Society commissioned from Rungius the first (a group of Pronghorns near the Green River in Wyoming) of what would eventually become twenty-two paintings of the big game and endangered species of North America, including the present work, for exhibition in their “Gallery of Wild Animal Paintings” in New York.
The fragility of the Western wilderness and its wildlife was well known to Rungius who, after returning to Wyoming in 1912, was deeply saddened to see the destruction of flora and fauna at the hands of growing economic demands on the natural resources of the region. Not only was Rungius happy to take up the cause for the Zoological Society, but the commission would provide the artist with a steady income, financing his continued adventures away from his New York studio and into the backcountry, allowing for the continued evolution of his mature style.
The paintings that resulted from the series, spanning two decades of Rungius’ artistic development, are a balance of factual scientific representation, aiming to inform an audience who may never have the opportunity to see the animals in person, as well as the painter’s increasing shift towards Impressionism. Works such as Prairie Wolf, constitute this marriage, built out of his first hand examination of his subject in the field, including detailed consideration of both their anatomy and their environment, and his New York exposure to the art of his time, as evidenced in his brightening palette and broad brushstrokes, which create masses of color, light and shadow, and denounced his early, more European academic, style.
Much as he had done with other works, including Mule Deer in the Badlands, Dawson County, Montana (1914, Buffalo Bill Historical Society, Cody, Wyoming), in Prairie Wolf Rungius likely relied upon his first-hand knowledge of the animal and its natural environment to achieve zoological accuracy. Thus, in Prairie Wolf, the title of which is somewhat misleading in that it refers instead to a Coyote, Rungius placed the canine within its natural context, likely Wyoming, with which he had an intimate understanding.
Furthermore, the shift in Rungius’ artistic style is evidenced in Prairie Wolf in the large swaths of paint that make up the landscape, its vegetation, and the animal itself. The subtle light variations between the outcropping of land on which Rungius’ coyote stands, the slightly darker middle ground of a valley and hill in the near distance as well as the brooding atmosphere of the oncoming storm in the far distance, are characteristic of Rungius’ celebrated mature style.
This series of pictures, including Prairie Wolf, is compelling documentation of our country’s natural world and, perhaps more significantly, its contribution to preservation efforts at the time. Just as Moran saved the Yellowstone area by bringing light to its beauty to an eastern audience, so may Rungius have for the wildlife of the American West. At least ten of the twenty-two works from this series can be found in the collections of National Museum of Wildlife Art, in Jackson, Wyoming, the Buffalo Bill Historical Society in Cody, Wyoming and the Glenbow Museum, in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
The present work retains what is most likely its original Newcomb-Macklin Co. frame.
The fragility of the Western wilderness and its wildlife was well known to Rungius who, after returning to Wyoming in 1912, was deeply saddened to see the destruction of flora and fauna at the hands of growing economic demands on the natural resources of the region. Not only was Rungius happy to take up the cause for the Zoological Society, but the commission would provide the artist with a steady income, financing his continued adventures away from his New York studio and into the backcountry, allowing for the continued evolution of his mature style.
The paintings that resulted from the series, spanning two decades of Rungius’ artistic development, are a balance of factual scientific representation, aiming to inform an audience who may never have the opportunity to see the animals in person, as well as the painter’s increasing shift towards Impressionism. Works such as Prairie Wolf, constitute this marriage, built out of his first hand examination of his subject in the field, including detailed consideration of both their anatomy and their environment, and his New York exposure to the art of his time, as evidenced in his brightening palette and broad brushstrokes, which create masses of color, light and shadow, and denounced his early, more European academic, style.
Much as he had done with other works, including Mule Deer in the Badlands, Dawson County, Montana (1914, Buffalo Bill Historical Society, Cody, Wyoming), in Prairie Wolf Rungius likely relied upon his first-hand knowledge of the animal and its natural environment to achieve zoological accuracy. Thus, in Prairie Wolf, the title of which is somewhat misleading in that it refers instead to a Coyote, Rungius placed the canine within its natural context, likely Wyoming, with which he had an intimate understanding.
Furthermore, the shift in Rungius’ artistic style is evidenced in Prairie Wolf in the large swaths of paint that make up the landscape, its vegetation, and the animal itself. The subtle light variations between the outcropping of land on which Rungius’ coyote stands, the slightly darker middle ground of a valley and hill in the near distance as well as the brooding atmosphere of the oncoming storm in the far distance, are characteristic of Rungius’ celebrated mature style.
This series of pictures, including Prairie Wolf, is compelling documentation of our country’s natural world and, perhaps more significantly, its contribution to preservation efforts at the time. Just as Moran saved the Yellowstone area by bringing light to its beauty to an eastern audience, so may Rungius have for the wildlife of the American West. At least ten of the twenty-two works from this series can be found in the collections of National Museum of Wildlife Art, in Jackson, Wyoming, the Buffalo Bill Historical Society in Cody, Wyoming and the Glenbow Museum, in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
The present work retains what is most likely its original Newcomb-Macklin Co. frame.