Frederic Remington is known today as one of America's premier chroniclers of the old West. Active at the end of the nineteenth century, he achieved fame with a series of paintings, sculptures, illustrations, and even books that vividly document the excitement of western life. These works provide an extraordinary record, a tribute to the cavalry, cowboys, and Indians that once roamed the vast territory west of the Mississippi.
Born in Canton, at the northernmost tip of New York state, Remington was the only child of Seth Pierre and Clara Sackrider Remington. The artist's father had a decisive influence on him; the elder man had been a distinguished member of the Union cavalry during the Civil War, and Remington's subsequent fascination with horses and military life was undoubtedly related to his father's experience. Although the artist preferred to pass himself off as self-taught, he did attend the Yale College School of Art, where from 1878-9 he spent a year and a half drawing from casts under the tutelage of John Henry Niemeyer and John Ferguson Weir. Later, in 1886, he enrolled for three months in the painting class offered by J. Alden Weir, younger brother of his Yale instructor, at the Art Students League in New York.
Remington took his first trip West ‑‑ to Montana territory ‑‑ the year after his father's death, in 1880. It was at this time that he decided to dedicate himself to western subject matter. "I knew the wild riders and the vacant land were about to vanish forever," he recalled later, "and the more I considered the subject the bigger the Forever loomed."1 With images of this fading frontier in hand, Remington returned to New York in 1882 and promptly found employment with Harper's Weekly, one of the most important illustrated periodicals of the day.
The publishers appreciated the freshness of Remington's images, and with time the artist developed into one of the best ‑‑ and most popular ‑‑ illustrators of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Remington's achievement, in fact, was recognized in 1905, when Collier's Weekly dedicated an entire issue to the artist and his work, a commendation offered to few other painters of his time.
Unlike Charles Russell, the artist of western subject matter with whom Remington is most often compared, Remington had little practical experience as a cowboy or cavalryman. His several attempts to establish himself in Kansas ‑‑ managing a sheep farm, hardware store, and saloon ‑‑ were unprofitable ventures, and after marrying Eva Caten in 1884, Remington settled permanently in New York. To gather material for his paintings, the artist undertook a series of trips to the West, traveling extensively in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Montana, North Dakota, and Wyoming as well as in western Canada and Mexico. He visited cavalry encampments and cowboy round-ups, observed frontier activity with a keen eye, and faithfully recorded his observations with pencil and sketchbook. Returning to his studio, Remington used these drawings as source material and brought the West to life in his art.
Remington's popularity as an illustrator was complemented by his activity in the New York art world. He began to exhibit at the American Watercolor Society and the National Academy of Design in 1887, and was elected an associate of the latter institution in 1891. In 1889 his work was awarded a silver medal at the Paris International Exposition, and the following year the American Art Association sponsored the first solo exhibition and sale of his art. By 1895, Remington had completed his first book, Pony Tracks, a compilation of short stories and illustrations, and, at the peak of his career, he was beginning to model in clay. These sculptures, like all Remington's artistic ventures, served to extend the artist's reputation, expanding his already extensive list of achievements.
Since his early death in 1909, appreciation for his art has continued to grow. Most recently, in 1988, Remington's paintings and sculptures were reevaluated and acclaimed in a retrospective exhibition organized by the Saint Louis Art Museum in conjunction with the Buffalo Bill Historical Center and seen, among other places, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. His work is represented in many important public collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas City; the Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth; the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Mass.; and the Frederic Remington Art Museum, Ogdensburg, New York.
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1 Frederic Remington, quoted in James K. Ballinger, Frederic Remington (New York: Harry N. Abrams in association with the National Museum of American Art, Washington D.C., 1989), p. 18.
