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C M Russell
Charles Marion Russell(1864, Oak Hill, Missouri - 1926 Great
Falls, Montana), also known as C. M. Russell, was one of the great
artists of the American West. Russell created more than 2,000
paintings of cowboys, Indians, and landscapes set in the Western
United States, in addition to bronze sculptures. The C. M. Russell
Museum in hometown of Great Falls, Montana houses more than 2,000
Russell artworks, personal objects, and artifacts. His mural
entitled Lewis and Clark Meeting the Flathead Indians hangs in the
state capitol building in Helena, Montana.
Art was always a part of Russell's life. Growing up in Missouri, he
drew sketches and made clay figures of animals. He had an intense
interest in the wild west and would spend hours reading about it.
He would watch explorers and fur traders who frequently came
through Missouri. Russell learned to ride horses at Hazel Dell Farm
in Jerseyville, Illinois on a famous Civil War horse called "Great
Britain." His instructor was Col. William H. Fulkerson who had
married into the Russell family. At the age of sixteen, he left
school and went to Montana to work on a sheep ranch.
In 1896, he married his wife Nancy. In 1897, they moved from the
small community of Cascade, Montana to neighboring Great Falls,
where Russell spent the majority of his life from that point on.
There, he continued with his art, becoming a local celebrity and
gaining the acclaim of critics worldwide. As he kept primarily to
himself, Nancy is generally given credit in making Russell an
internationally known artist. She set up many shows for him
throughout the United States and in London creating many followers
of Russell's. Russell the artist arrived on the cultural scene at a
time when the "wild west" was being chronicled and sold back to the
public in many forms, ranging from the dime novel to the wild west
show and soon evolving into motion picture shorts and features of
the silent era, the so-called [westerns] that have become a movie
staple. Russell was fond of these popular art forms, and made many
friends among the well-off collectors of his works, including
actors and film makers such as William S. Hart, Harry Carrey, Will
Rogers and Douglas Fairbanks. He also kept up with other artists of
his ilk, including painter Edward "Ed" Borein and Will Crawford the
illustrator. On the day of Russell's funeral in 1926, all the
children in Great Falls were released from school to watch the
funeral procession. Russell's coffin was displayed in a glass sided
coach, pulled by four black horses.
His 1918 painting Piegans sold for $5.6 million dollars at a 2005
auction.
Please visit our gallery of
C M Russell
Oil Painting Reproduction.
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