Mid-Morning Open Thread [Y-not]

Here's what the Google Cultural Institute has to say about this painting:

Completed a year before his death, Indians Simulating Buffalo was commissioned by publishers P. F. Collier and Son, with whom Remington had a contract. The painting was used as the cover image of the September 18, 1909, issue of Collier's Magazine. Remington's paintings of 1907-1908 reflect increasing Impressionist influence. In this canvas, he adapted the style's intense palette to record the strong sunlight and parched landscape, while the brushstrokes delineating the buffalo robes and the strong vertical blue and reddish lines that build up the shadows beneath them are similar to the Impressionists' brushwork

I love this painting. I confess that I tend to enjoy depictions of the West and Southwest. (Another favorite artist of mine is Bev Doolittle.)

A bit about Remington's career as an illustrator:

At age nineteen, Remington made his first trip into the old West of the 1880s where he saw the vast prairies, the buffalo herds, unfenced cattle country, and some the last major confrontations between the U.S. Cavalry and native Americans. In subsequent years, he made many trips to the West and Great Plains. He worked as cowboy, ranch hand, lumberjack, hunted grizzly bears in New Mexico, and became a gold miner in Apache country in Arizona. He also tried other ventures, including sheep ranching in Kansas and part owner of a Kansas City saloon. Other government and business ventures lasted only a few months in some cases. But along with his travels and experiences, he continued to draw. He sent illustrations back East to newspapers and magazines, among them, Outing Magazine, Harper's Weekly and Scribners. Remington's work hit the market at a good time, as tales of the West were very popular in Eastern cities. Publishers used everything he sent.

Remington's first full-page magazine cover under his own name appeared in Harper's Weekly in January 1886. He was 25. With financial backing from an uncle, he was able to pursue his art career and support his wife. Commissions came as well. In 1886, he was sent to Arizona by Harper's Weekly to cover the government's war against Geronimo. A trip to Canada in 1887, produced illustrations of the Blackfoot, the Crow Nation, and the Canadian Mounties. In 1888, two of his paintings were used on U. S. Postal stamps. He also supplied illustrations for a book by Teddy Roosevelt that was first serialized in Century Magazine. More than 70 of his illustrations were used in Frances Parkman's novel, Oregon Trail. Remington's first one-man art show came in 1890 with twenty-one paintings and was very well received. About that time, becoming more of an established artist, he and his wife moved to New Rochelle, New York where he had a large studio.

The Frederic Remington Art Museum is in Ogdensburg, New York, where his family lived during his youth. Follow this link for a virtual tour. Has anyone been there?

Open thread.

posted by Open Blogger at 09:45 AM

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