Frederic Remington
Frederic Remington
1861 - 1909
American painter, sculptor, illustrator and writer. In 1878 he began his studies at the newly formed School of the Fine Arts at Yale University in New Haven, CT, remaining there until 1880. This, along with a few months at the Art Students League in New York in 1886, was his only period of formal art training. In 1881 he roamed through the Dakotas, Montana, the Arizona Territory and Texas to document an era that was fast vanishing. He returned east and in 1882 had his first drawing published (25 Feb) in Harper’s Weekly. Further commissions for illustrations followed, including that for Theodore Roosevelt’s Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail (New York, 1888) (see ). He became a business partner for a bar in Kansas City, MO, but its failure, coupled with his continued success as an illustrator, convinced him that he would do better to record the West visually rather than help to develop it financially.
Remington returned to live in New York in 1885 and spent the next few years building a reputation as a renowned professional illustrator for the popular magazines Harper’s Weekly, The Century Illustrated and Scribner’s Magazine. His only direct contact with his subject-matter was through short periodic trips to the West from his home in Brooklyn in order to make sketches for the black-and-white drawings for these magazines. On his visits he also amassed valuable first-hand experience with the cavalry, the cowboys and the Indians for the short stories that he was beginning to publish. During the 1880s his style developed and matured, though there is little evidence for this as he destroyed many of his paintings himself, the well-known Dash for the Timber (1889; Fort Worth, TX, Amon Carter Mus.) being one of the few surviving works from this period. In the slightly later Fight for the Waterhole (c. 1895–1900; Houston, TX, Mus. F.A.) features of the landscape are subordinated to the dramatic story line. In 1895 Remington began to exhibit his bronze sculptures of cowboys and horses in motion (e.g. Mountain Man, 1903; Cody, WY, Buffalo Bill Hist. Cent.): these became so popular that they were reproduced in multiples.
After 1900 Remington’s oils gradually shifted from a tight illustrative style to a somewhat Impressionist one. He became influenced by Monet as well as by Childe Hassam, John H. Twachtman and Julian Alden Weir, all three of whom he knew personally. Colour, light and composition became more important than details. Some of his late oils combine sharp outlines with sketchier brushstrokes to create a most effective form of impressionistic realism, as in Pony Herder (1909; Denver, CO, Mus. W. A.) and On the Southern Plains (1907; New York, Met.). In this painting the figures of the Indian and his horse are rendered in a more precise manner, revealing Remington’s talents as a draughtsman, while the skies, grass and herd of ponies beyond are executed in loose brushstrokes. He wrote that ‘I have always wanted to be able to paint running horses so you could feel the details instead of seeing them’. Another work of his late years, Downing the Nigh Leader (1907; Denver, CO, Mus. W. A.), is, with Dash for the Timber, his best-known painting: both are valuable documents of the early days of the American West and realistically portray dramatic incidents. Remington was one of the foremost exponents of WILD WEST AND FRONTIER ART. He wrote eight books (e.g. The Way of an Indian, New York and London, 1906) and numerous short stories, as well as executing 2500 drawings, 23 sculptures (e.g. Mountain Man, 1903; New York, Met.) and many paintings in celebration of his chosen subject. [W. C. Foxley. "Remington, Frederic." Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press, accessed September 10, 2014, http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/grove/art/T071404.]
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French, 1864 - 1901
