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Lot Essay
Throughout his career, Charles Marion Russell recorded life on the American Frontier. "The Cowboy Artist" first traveled to Montana from St. Louis just after his sixteenth birthday. His father suggested the trip, hoping that his son would be cured of his romantic notions of the West. Instead, Russell became enamored with the local life, spending the next seven years as a horse wrangler and night herder before becoming a full-time artist in 1893.
During the winter of 1888-89, Russell lived among the Blood Indians on their reservation in Alberta, Canada. This experience had a profound impact on the artist and his work. Russell deepened his understanding of the community's history and culture, a knowledge that intensified his sympathy and respect for a way of life that was quickly disappearing. The artist's respect for the Native Americans of the Plains found direct expression in his art throughout the rest of his career. "By the turn of the century, the Indian Wars had ended and the transition to reservation life was in progress throughout the Plains region. As the West of Russell's youth yielded to encroaching civilization, his artistic vision evolved away from stern realism and toward a more romantic style. The image of a single mounted warrior was a format Russell employed frequently and brilliantly manifested his nostalgic sentiments. Throughout his artistic career, he depicted one or more paintings of a lone warrior from every tribe with which he came in contact." (Gerald Peters Gallery, Charles M. Russell: The Artist in His Heyday, 1903-1926, Great Falls, Montana, 1995, p. 40)
The Signal draws directly from Russell's experience and training, as he simultaneously captures the finest details and the basic essence of his subject. Set against a dramatic sweep with mesas in the background, the sole figure presents a statuesque and heroic pose atop his pinto steed. Russell has frozen the moment instilling the painting with tension. While there is no action in the painting, there is drama and anticipation. The warrior is sending a message to his tribesmen, a strong indication that action will shortly follow.
Native Americans became an emblem of the vanishing frontier for Russell. "That Indian, symbolizing the Rousseauian natural man, was the single most significant symbol of the West for Russell. Such traditions as the buffalo hunt were far more profound than any of the ephemeral proficiencies of his fellow cowboys, and these traditions represented timeless and universal values that only the arts could preserve. Civilization had crushed the plains culture. Despite the fact that the artist's vocation as a cowboy had indirectly caused the final depletion of the bison, Russell followed a self-enlightened mandate to celebrate and preserve the Indian image as noble. Just as he struggled to humanize the cowboy, he strove to idealize the Indian." (P.H. Hassrick, Charles M. Russell, New York, 1989, p. 50) In The Signal Russell monumentalizes a majestic Native American warrior and captures a moment in America's history that is now past.
Special thank you to Mrs. Frederic G. Renner and Mr. Byron Price for their assistance with the cataloguing of this lot.
During the winter of 1888-89, Russell lived among the Blood Indians on their reservation in Alberta, Canada. This experience had a profound impact on the artist and his work. Russell deepened his understanding of the community's history and culture, a knowledge that intensified his sympathy and respect for a way of life that was quickly disappearing. The artist's respect for the Native Americans of the Plains found direct expression in his art throughout the rest of his career. "By the turn of the century, the Indian Wars had ended and the transition to reservation life was in progress throughout the Plains region. As the West of Russell's youth yielded to encroaching civilization, his artistic vision evolved away from stern realism and toward a more romantic style. The image of a single mounted warrior was a format Russell employed frequently and brilliantly manifested his nostalgic sentiments. Throughout his artistic career, he depicted one or more paintings of a lone warrior from every tribe with which he came in contact." (Gerald Peters Gallery, Charles M. Russell: The Artist in His Heyday, 1903-1926, Great Falls, Montana, 1995, p. 40)
The Signal draws directly from Russell's experience and training, as he simultaneously captures the finest details and the basic essence of his subject. Set against a dramatic sweep with mesas in the background, the sole figure presents a statuesque and heroic pose atop his pinto steed. Russell has frozen the moment instilling the painting with tension. While there is no action in the painting, there is drama and anticipation. The warrior is sending a message to his tribesmen, a strong indication that action will shortly follow.
Native Americans became an emblem of the vanishing frontier for Russell. "That Indian, symbolizing the Rousseauian natural man, was the single most significant symbol of the West for Russell. Such traditions as the buffalo hunt were far more profound than any of the ephemeral proficiencies of his fellow cowboys, and these traditions represented timeless and universal values that only the arts could preserve. Civilization had crushed the plains culture. Despite the fact that the artist's vocation as a cowboy had indirectly caused the final depletion of the bison, Russell followed a self-enlightened mandate to celebrate and preserve the Indian image as noble. Just as he struggled to humanize the cowboy, he strove to idealize the Indian." (P.H. Hassrick, Charles M. Russell, New York, 1989, p. 50) In The Signal Russell monumentalizes a majestic Native American warrior and captures a moment in America's history that is now past.
Special thank you to Mrs. Frederic G. Renner and Mr. Byron Price for their assistance with the cataloguing of this lot.