Frederic Remington was born in Canton, New York. Attended the
Yale School of Art, where he studied drawing and played
football.
Slide 4
When he was twenty years old, he traveled west for a vacation
and mailed a rough sketch to Harpers Weekly magazine, kicking off
his career as an illustrator. He had tried his hand at sheep
ranching in Kansas, but after a couple of years returned to New
York, making trips west from his home base in the East. Most of his
work was created in his studio in New Rochelle, New York. Harper's
Weekly, September 17, 1887 "Burning the Range"
Slide 5
ILLUSTRATION Remington made his name as an illustrator, mostly
of western and military subjects, for most of the widely circulated
magazines of the late 1880s and 1890s. Among the magazines he
illustrated were Harpers Weekly, Harpers Monthly, Century,
Colliers, Outing, Boys Life, and Cosmopolitan. He remains most
closely associated with depictions of the old West. He created most
of the art for reproduction in books and magazines using black and
white media: pen and ink, ink wash and gouache, and black and white
oil. His magazine work also included self- assigned reporting
missions, which resulted in many articles both written and
illustrated by Frederic Remington. Photo of a stagecoach entering a
western town, ca.1888 Remington took many photos on his trips West
in order to create accurate drawings when he returned home to New
York.
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WRITING Remington was unafraid of writing, and specialized in
tales of high adventure in the West. His magazine articles were
collected into books, and he published works of fiction as well,
amounting to eight books in all. At work in his summer studio at
Ingleneuk Island, ca. 1901.
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PAINTINGS Remington traveled west many times to report for
magazines and to accumulate photographs, make sketches and buy
props for his studio. This enabled him to create accurate details
and gain inspiration each day in the comfort of his studio.
Painting The Indian Trapper in his New York Studio, ca. 1889
Slide 8
BRONZES In 1895 Remington began to make sculptures, producing
22 different subjects. He worked in clay. His clay models were cast
in bronze at art foundries. His first four subjects were cast using
the sand casting method at the Henry-Bonnard Co. In 1898 he began
working exclusively with Roman Bronze Works, N.Y., which employed
the lost wax casting method. For an accounting of legitimate bronze
casts and their whereabouts, see Icons of the West: Frederic
Remingtons Sculpture by Michael D. Greenbaum, published in 1996 by
the Frederic Remington Art Museum. Remington working on the clay
model of The Buffalo Horse in his New Rochelle, New York studio.
1907
Slide 9
Remingtons only monumental statue.
Slide 10
Beneath leaden skies of gunmetal gray, two cowboys have halted
their horses in a bleak wintry landscape. One of them has
dismounted to remove the rails of a fence gate so they can pass
through. The whole scene is infused with the slow rhythms and
somber tones of an elegy; a lament for something that has gone
forever. Remington, like his friend Theodore Roosevelt, also a
great popularizer of the West in this period, viewed the cowboy as
the last great figure of Americas frontier history; hardy and self
reliant, but doomed to extinction in the wake of civilizations
steady progress. This mythic image was soon to be immortalized in
the pages of Owen Wisters The Virginian, published to wide acclaim
in 1902arguably the first western novel. The Fall of the Cowboy,
1895 Oil on canvas Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas,
1961.230
Slide 11
Remington felt compelled to record an American West that he
believed to be disappearing. He loved to portray the action and
energy of the West
Slide 12
He made 24 sculptures in his last 14 years as an artist.
Remington liked the permanence of bronze sculpture: My water colors
will fadebut I am to endure in bronze, he said. The Bronco Buster,
1895 bronze 26 in. x 19 in. x 14 in.
Slide 13
The following slides are photographs and paintings by Frederick
Remington, unless otherwise stated. Look and think about what the
images are telling you about the Old West.
Slide 14
By this time, barbed wire had closed down the long cattle
trails for nearly two decades. Photographed by F. M. Steele.
Slide 15
Slide 16
Though he continued to study the night sky and to experiment
with color, Remington remained unsatisfied with the results of his
efforts. It was not until June 1908 that he was able to write in
his diary that he had finally discovered how to do the silver sheen
of moonlight.
Slide 17
Remington's nocturnes are filled with color and light
moonlight, firelight, and candlelight. These complex paintings
testify to the artist's interest in modern technological
innovations, including flash photography and the advent of
electricity, which was rapidly transforming the character of
night.
Slide 18
What do you see? Describe the colors, the action, the setting
and the subjects.
Slide 19
There are two cowboys trying to gather a group of runaway cows
that were frightened by lightning. A single bolt of lightning can
be seen in the upper-right hand corner of the painting.
Slide 20
This is a monochromatic painting, using tints and shades of
green. These colors create a rain-like effect in the painting,
adding to the viewers understanding of the harshness of the
conditions. Green is often an eerie color, and in this painting it
represents the strange light during a thunderstorm, as well as the
expressive quality of the fear of the stampede.
Slide 21
There are some yellow-greens in the painting, but they are a
small part of the overall painting. They create the little moments
of light during the storm.
Slide 22
Rosa Bonheur (French, 18221899) Oil on canvas 96 1/4 x 199 1/2
in. (244.5 x 506.7 cm) Signed and dated (lower right): Rosa Bonheur
1853.5 Gift of Cornelius Vanderbilt, 1887 (87.25)
Slide 23
Mount and Day Herd Date c1905 Horses, cowboys, and cattle,
surrounding water hole. Library of Congress Photo by F.M.
Steele.