Frederic Remington

 

By Kristy McCaffrey

Frederic Remington is best known for his art depicting the cowboys, U.S. Cavalry, and Native Americans of the Old West. He was a painter, illustrator, sculptor, and writer.

 

A Dash for the Timber, 1889.

Born in Canton, New York, in 1861, his family had hoped he would have a military career, but his love of drawing revealed itself early. His goal was to become a journalist, while doing his art on the side. At 17, he wrote to his uncle of his modest ambitions, “I never intend to do any great amount of labor. I have but one short life and do not aspire to wealth or fame in a degree which could only be obtained by an extraordinary effort on my part.”

The Herd Boy

He attended art school at Yale University, preferring action drawing rather than still life objects. At 19, he made his first trip west when he traveled to Montana, and he quickly grew to love the frontier and the heroic cowboys and soldiers he met there. He went on to work for several magazines, creating images that helped shape the world’s perception of the American west.

 

The Broncho Buster, 1895

While he produced over 3,000 paintings and drawings, he’s best known for his sculptures, which he began in 1895 with “The Broncho Buster.”

* * *

In my upcoming novel, THE STARLING, a mystery surrounds the western painter J. Montgomery.

Colorado 1899 

Kate Ryan has always had a streak of justice in her. When she decides to apply to the Pinkerton Detective Agency, nothing will stand in her way. Initially hired in a clerical position, she quickly works her way up to field agent with the help of her mentor, Louise Foster. When Louise is injured, Kate gets her first assignment and the opportunity of a lifetime. 

Henry Maguire has been undercover in the household of wealthy entrepreneur Arthur Wingate. Employed as a ghostwriter to pen the man’s memoir, Henry is also searching for clues to a lucrative counterfeiting scheme. When Henry’s “wife” shows up, he’s taken aback by the attractive woman who isn’t Louise. Now he must work with a female agent he doesn’t know and doesn’t necessarily trust. And because he has another reason for coming into Wingate’s world, Kate Ryan is unavoidably in his way.

Kate Ryan is the daughter of Matt and Molly from THE WREN, and THE STARLING is the first of five novels featuring the second generation of Ryans in the Wings of the West series.

Coming August 2, 2022

Read Chapter One and Pre-Order Now

Remington: An Exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC

'Standing Off Indians, illustration for T. Roosevelt book, Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail, ca. 1888 

Name an American artist whose work specialized in the American West and most likely you will think of either C.M. Russell or Frederic Remington. It was my good fortune to recently visit a Remington exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

'On the Headwaters--Burgess Finding a Ford' illustration for Policing the Yellowstone, 1893, Harper's

While Remington came from upstate New York, connections to the west were certainly in his blood. He was distantly related to George Catlin, portrait artist of Native Americans, to the Remingtons of rifle fame, and to mountain man Jedediah Smith.  These connections did not seem to have particularly inspired him early on; he was something of a dilettante and highly unfocused, preferring football to his art classes at Yale, and subsequently going through several unrelated jobs upon his father’s death.  The brief stint at Yale, along with some courses at the Art Students’ League in NYC, were his only formal art training.

illustration for Owen Lister's book, 'Lin McLean' published 1898

Aged nineteen, in 1881, Remington finally headed west to Montana. He eventually bought an interest in an unsuccessful sheep ranch in KS, but it was upon his marriage in 1884 that he finally opened a studio, initially in Kansas City, MO.  His first published sketch, of a Wyoming cowboy, appeared in Harper’s Weekly in Feb. 1882. After extensive travels throughout the west, Remington returned to NY where his career took off.

The Old Dragoons of 1850, modeled 1905, cast 1907

Remington’s illustrations appeared in forty-nine periodicals, predominantly Collier’s and Harper’s.  He also went on to illustrate books by such acclaimed authors as Owen Wister, Longfellow, T. Roosevelt, and Francis Parkman. He began exhibiting paintings in 1887, but it was when he studied under sculptor Frederick W. Ruckstall that his talent for modeling came to light. The Bronco Buster, copyrighted in 1895, was an instant success. NY foundries cast more than 275 authorized bronzes of that alone during his lifetime, and there were twenty-two different bronzes in total, almost all of western subjects.

illustration for The Song of Hiawatha' by Longfellow, 1891

Remington had moved to New Rochelle, and eventually to Ridgefield, Conn. where he died in 1909, aged forty-eight, from complications following an appendectomy. There is a Frederic Remington Art Museum in Ogdensburg, NY, housing numerous works and memorabilia.

'On the Southern Plains' oil on canvas, 1907 (originally titled, 'Cavalry in Sixties')

I may have missed Valentine's Day, but love is still in the air with these seven novellas by seven award-winning and best-selling authors.  What's more romantic than a sexy cowboy? Treat yourself for a belated Valentine's Day to a best-selling contemporary western anthology with 53 Reviews and 4.5 Stars, only $0.99. A COWBOY TO KEEP is at https://www.amazon.com/Cowboy-Keep-Contemporary-Western-Collection-ebook/dp/B072869SGV/ . Go catch a cowboy . . .. and keep a cowboy!