Frederic Remington Art Museum Collection

A detailed study of the twenty-two sculptures created by Remington, contrasting authentic lifetime castings with fraudulent examples.

Few American artists are as enduringly popular as Frederic Remington (1861-1909). His bronzes and paintings of the American West have become iconic images, shaping the way Americans view the history of the West. This generously illustrated volume is the first to examine the exceptional collection of his works housed at the Frederic Remington Art Museum in Ogdensburg, New York. In his richly detailed portrait of the artist, Western art scholar Brian W. Dippie traces Remington's life and artistic development. Drawing extensively on Remington's letters, diaries, and other archival materials, Dippie explores some 100 of the most important works in the collection in the context of prevailing social, cultural, and political attitudes -- including the ethnic and racial stereotypes for which Remington's work is sometimes criticized today. An important addition to the Remington literature, this handsome volume highlights Remington's impressive range and underscores his achievements as an illustrator, sculptor, and painter.

Traces the life and career of the American artist and illustrator famous for his scenes of nineteenth-century Western life. -- Amazon.com.

It is impossible to reflect upon Frederic Remington’s art without thinking of the merely human elements. Remington became interested in the American Indian, probably because he became interested in the active, exciting life of the American Great Plains. The Indian appealed to him not in any histrionic way, not as a figure stepped out from the pages of Hiawatha, but just as a human subject. Remington hit upon this truth when he travelled west. What he found there was majesty that he did not make, solely, an affair of Indians in war paint and feathers. Remington knew how the light of the moon or of the stars is diffused, how softly and magically it envelops the landscape. There is a sort of artistic honesty in his nocturnal studies. He never set out to be romantic or melodramatic, just to develop his affinity and closeness to nature. The beauty of the painter’s motive, too, has communicated itself in his technique. His grey-green tones fading into velvety depths take on transparency, and in his handling of form he uses a touch as firm as need be. The determining influence in his career was that of the creative impulse, urging him to deal in the translation of visible things into pictorial terms.

Themes of the American West have been enduringly popular, and 'The American West in Bronze' features sixty-five iconic bronzes that display a range of subjects, from portrayals of the noble Indian to rough-and-tumble scenes of rowdy cowboys to tributes to the pioneers who settled the lands west of the Mississippi. Fascinating texts offer a fresh look at the roles that artists played in creating interpretations of the "vanishing West"--Whether based on fact, fiction or something in-between. These artists, including Charles M. Russell and Frederic Remington, embody a range of life experiences and artistic approaches."'The American West in Bronze, 1850-1925' is the first full-scale exhibition to explore the aesthetic and cultural impulses behind the creation of statuettes with American western themes, which have been so popular with audiences then and now. Both the exhibition and this accompanying catalogue offer a fresh look at the multifaceted roles played by these sculptors in creating three-dimensional interpretations of western life, whether based on historical fact, mythologized fiction, or most often, something in-between. Examples by such archetypal representatives of the West as Frederic Remington and Charles M. Russell are complemented by the work of sculptors such as James Earle Fraser and Paul Manship, who contributed to the popularity of the American bronze statuette even though their western subjects were less frequent."--Publisher's description.

From reviews of the first edition: "Richly illustrated . . . this handsome volume presents the rugged beauty and rowdy spirit of life on the frontier, as captured by two master painters." —Art Gallery International ". . . large color plates beautifully reproduce dashing, romantic scenes of frontier life created by two of the West's foremost portrayers." —American West "The many devotees of Remington and Russell and of Western art in general will want to add this handsome volume to their collection." —Arizona Highways "... the University of Texas Press, as one would expect, has produced a beautiful book ...." —Montana Since its original publication in 1982, Remington and Russell has become an essential introduction to the work of these artists, and this revision substantially enhances the book's strengths. Every painting in the Sid Richardson Collection has been rephotographed for this edition, including one Russell and five Remington paintings not included previously. Numerous black-and-white illustrations have also been added to give insight into the evolution of the paintings. Brian Dippie has considerably amplified his commentaries on each painting with new information. His revised introduction places Remington and Russell in the historical and cultural contexts of their time and draws intriguing comparisons between the two artists.

Introduction/ Nancy K. Anderson -- What's out there? Frederic Remington's art of darkness/ William C. Sharpe -- Dark, disquiet: Remington's late nocturnes/ Nancy Anderson -- Burning daylight: Remington, electricity, and flash photography/ Alexander Nemerov -- Nocturnes: a catalogue -- Appendix: Notes on conservation/ Ross Merrill, Thomas J. Branchick, Perry Huston, Norman E. Muller, Robert G. Proctor, Jr., Jill Whitten.