R: Frederick Remington

I am not sure whether my parents decorated our childhood room with the intention of introducing us to the art of Fredrick Remington, or just wanted to put cowboy pictures up in a boy’s room. I suspect, knowing my parents, they intended both.

Remington was a prolific artist, who seems to dance the line between illustrator and fine artist in his paintings and drawings. His sculpture is pure drama. He is clearly one of the most highly regarded American artists of his time. In 1895 “Harper's Weekly published Remington’s first published commercial effort, a re-drawing of a quick sketch on wrapping paper that he had mailed back East.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederic_Remington)

“Remington attended the art school at Yale University, the only male in the freshman year. However, he found that football and boxing were more interesting than the formal art training, particularly drawing from casts and still life objects. He preferred action drawing and his first published illustration was a cartoon of a “bandaged football player” for the student newspaper Yale Courant.” His first efforts were cartoonish and not particularly good. It was only after a failed business and his wife left him that he began sketching and painting in earnest. He bartered for essentials with his artwork. This rings home for me as I have many times traded design or illustration work for the little extras that I can’t afford on my salary.

Although his persona was probably greatly inflated by promotions and suggestions made by Harper’s Weekly in an effort to promote his illustrations, I like that he was rough around the edges and it comes through in his work. Yet he is equally sensitive to small gestures and light in his sculpture and later work without losing any of the power and impact. His illustrative story-telling skills became very acute and he also dappled in more impressionistic paintings like Against the Sunset.

My daughter Alexis and I need very little prompting to sit down and dissect a John Ford/John Wayne western. I think that I find the same sense of history and imagination in Remington echoed in these films. The images of Henry Fonda and Wayne leading the column in Fort Apache evoke the same sense as Remington’s long columns of cavalry troops. It also seems that Remington had the same awe and respect for the Native Americans as his paintings of them were heroic and idealized.

Many years ago, I had an opportunity to do some sketches for a movie about cowboys. My sketches went nowhere and, upon reflection, belonged there. But they were definitely inspired by Remington, Ford, and Wayne. When considering “previous lives”—which I think is really just fantasy—I imaged myself a captain in the cavalry on many occasions. It’s an image that makes me laugh, but I could use a smile today. So perhaps I will have that in the back of my brain as I sit in my cubical today.