Biography from Thomas Nygard Gallery:
| Frederic Remington was born on October 1, 1861, in Canton, New York. From a very young age, Remington showed artistic inclinations. His school notebooks were full of sketches, often depicting Old West characters and equestrian figures. Remington's fondness for horses also materialized at an early age. As a boy, he was an accomplished rider, a skill imparted by his father who had been a cavalry officer during the Civil War.
In 1872, the Remington family moved to Ogdensburg, New York, where young Remington was enrolled in a military academy at the age of fifteen. His fervent desire to become an artist convinced his parents to let him take art classes at Yale University in 1878. After an initial period of enthusiasm, Remington soon became discouraged with the tedious routine of academic art instruction and turned his interest to athletics, becoming the Yale boxing champion and a member of the football team.
Upon the death of his father in 1880, Remington quit Yale and decided to try to make his living as an artist. He spent five years traveling in the West, during which he decided to commit himself to the artistic representation of the history, people and traditions of the "Old West." Remington befriended anyone who could afford him additional insight into his obsession. He talked to cowboys, saloon keepers, Indians, soldiers and settlers. He became a close friend of William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody and was often invited to stay at his famous ranch.
Remington moved to New York City and began working as a freelance illustrator and studying at the Art Student's League. His first accomplishment as a professional artist came in 1882, when one of his sketches was published in the February 25 issue of "Harper's Weekly". He began to get regular commissions and by 1887 was supporting himself well. That year, he produced several important easel works. He exhibited a painting at the American Water Color Society Show and another at the National Academy of Design Exhibition.
The following year, in 1888, he won two prestigious awards at the National Academy: The Hallgarten Prize and the Clark Prize. Remington had finally achieved full success in his field and he was deluged with commissions. By 1890, his stature and wealth allowed him to buy a mansion in New Rochelle, where he built a large studio and stocked it with his collection of western artifacts. His fame and wealth continued until his death at the age of 48. |
Biography from Nedra Matteucci Galleries:
| FREDERIC REMINGTON (1861-1904)
A New Yorker by birth, Frederic Remington's famed career as the quintessential Western artist, was launched by a marriage proposal. The father of the prospective bride refused his daughter's hand to as feckless, improper artist. Remington headed west, partly to forget and partly to show that he was a true artist of worth.
At 21, Remington inherited $9,000 from his father's estate, bought a small ranch in Kansas and with several other men eventually purchased a saloon in Kansas City. Even though he was cheated by his partners and lost considerable money, Remington had indeed been selling some paintings and drawings of his own, and he felt confident of his eventual success to return to New York, there marrying Eva.
However, with his inheritance gone, Remington found it hard to make a living on the sale of his paintings alone and began to illustrate for Outing Magazine, Harper's Weekly, Youth's Companion and Century. The Century articles were written by Theodore Roosevelt, and the collaboration was eventually published in book form. Immensely popular, the book contained ninety-nine Remington drawings and greatly furthered his career.
Remington lived in New York but repeatedly traveled west and was an observer of many historical events such as the battle at Wounded Knee. Not only did Remington record these events with pen, ink and paint, he wrote about them. The artists/journalist became a war correspondent to Cuba in 1898 where he witnessed the capture of San Juan Hill. Remington called himself a historian by virtue of his collected magazine articles, illustrated by himself, and wrote two historical novels, John Ermine of the Yellowstone and The Way of the Indian. He also completed illustrations for his friend Owen Wister's Done in the Open.
In 1909, at the height of his fame, Remington died of appendicitis at the age of forty-eight. His death did not diminish the popularity of his drawings, paintings and bronzes and in the years since, his works have been used to constantly illustrate the history of the American West. |
Biography from Altermann Galleries and Auctioneers, Santa Fe III:
| Frederic Remington’s art so completely dominated the popular imagination concerning the West in his lifetime that historians are still coming to grips with its legacy.
Born and raised in Canton, New York, Remington enrolled in the Yale Art School before traveling west in 1881 in order to work on a ranch. Two years later he purchased land in Kansas and attempted life as a sheep rancher, but eventually was drawn more and more toward a career as an artist. Remington knew that there was a growing national awareness of the West as a uniquely American region and of the mounted horseman as its symbol. Moving to New York, he went to work for Harper and Brothers and became their most popular illustrator in a very short period of time. He embarked on a regular series of assignments that took him back to his beloved West, where he sketched and gathered material that would find its way into his voluminous writings, illustrations and paintings of life on the frontier.
Many of his earliest sketches and paintings depicted Apache conflicts and their great chief, Geronimo. These tightly rendered and dramatic depictions are accentuated by the brilliant and dusty colors reminiscent of the desert. Remington’s later style involved an increasing looseness in his brushwork; painted in short, occasionally broad strokes, one senses the dash and flair that Remington was able to transmit a story, elevating it to the status of art. “It is hardly possible to convey in words an accurate idea of the panic and terror spread throughout the country by Apaches on the warpath,” Remington wrote in an unpublished manuscript. “I have been in towns when yellow fever and cholera were first announced and have seen the panic-stricken flight of the people; but have never seen anything so terrify and paralyze people as the near approach of these bloodthirsty outlaws.”
ReSources include: The American West: Legendary Artists of the Frontier, Dr. Rick Stewart, Hawthorne Publishing Company, 1986
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Biography from THE COEUR D' ALENE ART AUCTION:
| | Frederic Remington was born in Canton, New York, where his father was a newspaper publisher. As a boy he sketched the horses, Indians, cowboys and soldiers he dreaded about. When he was seventeen, he was one of the first two students to enter the Yale University Art School. In 1880 Remington's father died and the ensuing inheritance prompted him to leave school. He worked briefly at several office jobs, but could not settle down and grew restless and headed west with his easel, paint and brushes to find his "Pot of Gold". He spent time working as a cowboy and sheep rancher, prospecting for gold and fighting as a soldier against the renegade Sioux. He studied and sketched the land around him with almost photographic eyes. His subjects were of prime importance, and his heroes were the everyday people of the frontier. He insisted on realism in every detail. He took a serious interest in art, entering the Art Students League to improve his technique. Success did not come quickly; by the early 1890s his paintings began to win prizes and he became in great demand as a magazine and book illustrator. In 1895 his first sculpture, "Bronco Buster", won instant acclaim. After achieving both wealth and notoriety, Remington moved to a Connecticut farm, where he established a library and art gallery and surrounded himself with his western artifacts and memorabilia. He died suddenly from an attack of appendicitis in Ridgefield, Connecticut, at the age of forty-eight. |
Biography from William A. Karges Fine Art - Beverly Hills:
| Frederick Remington was born in Canton, New York, in 1861. His formal art instruction was brief. He had one year of study at Yale’s school of art, and brief study with American Impressionist J. Alden Weir at the Art Student League in New York.
Most of Remington’s time was spent out west, painting for exhibitions, and submitting illustrations for easterners hungry for a glimpse of the American West. Because Remington lived the life he painted, he was an especially interesting figure to the editors who purchased his works. Once he had achieved a comfortable level of financial success, Remington focused his energies on lost-wax sculptures, further exploring the western theme that brought him fame.
He died suddenly of appendicitis at his home in Connecticut at the age of 48. |
Biography from AskART:
| Born at Canton, New York, Frederic Remington became the foremost turn-of -the-century illustrator, painter, and sculptor of western action-packed subjects with cowboys, Indians, horses, soldiers, and other frontier characters. His style was realistic, and much of his work was narrative with strong implication that the West belonged to the white man, but his Indians were portrayed with dignity and nobility.
During his lifetime, Remington created about 25 bronzes with the most famous being "The Bronco Buster", and one of the largest being the cowboy statue for Fairmount Park in Philadelphia. He also did about 3000 paintings, some which he burned towards the end of his life.
Remington was the son of the local newspaper publisher, and in 1878 entered the Yale School of Fine Arts for one year, excelling at football and art. Because of his father's death, he could not afford to return to school, so he traveled West and made numerous sketches, selling one to "Harper's Weekly." He studied for a short time with J. Alden Weir, a founder of American Impressionism, at the Art Students League in New York, but did not stay there for long because he had little patience for formal schooling.
In the next years, he made many trips to the West and Plains States and worked as a cowboy, ranch hand, lumberjack, and gold miner in Apache country in Arizona. He also sent illustrations back to "Outing Magazine," "Harper's Weekly," and "Scribners." Publishers used everything he sent them because his experiences were so fascinating to easterners. He also illustrated articles by Theodore Roosevelt for "Century Magazine" and for Frances Parkman's novel, "Oregon Trail." During the Spanish American War, he was an artist-correspondent in Cuba. Other travels were to North Africa, Mexico, Russia, Germany and England.
Regarding himself always as a fine artist, he regularly sent paintings to New York City from the West for exhibition at the National Academy of Design and the American Watercolor Society. He also exhibited in New York galleries including the Knoedler Gallery, where he had his last public show in 1926.
He was ever-fascinated by the motion of horses and took many photos of them in the newly invented roll film box camera. He painted and sculpted the animals often, frequently at full gallop, but always juxtaposed them with human figures, never drawing single horse portraits. The same was true of his landscapes, which invariably had human activity in them. In 1895, he began working in bronze and cast his famous work, "The Bronco Buster." He became so enamored of sculpting that his painting quality deteriorated.
His early paintings of the West were much more literal depictions than his romanticized later ones of the disappearing West. In his later years, he preferred to paint nocturnes because it allowed him greater freedom and depth of perspective.
For his bronze sculpture, he used the foundry Roman Bronze Works, the first foundry in the United States to devote itself exclusively to the age-old lost wax method. Foundry owner Ricardo Berteli and Remington worked closely together to explore technical and creative aspects of casting bronze.
Because Remington is so associated with the American West, it may be surprising that he spent time with Augustus Saint-Gaudens and others in the artist colony in Cornish, New Hampshire. He almost bought property there, finding the fellowship of the community very stimulating.
He died in 1909 at Ridgefield, Connecticut from an appendicitis, when he was age forty eight. From 1886 to six months before his death, his home had been in New Rochelle, New York where he had a large studio.
Sources:
Harold and Peggy Samuels, Encyclopedia of the American West
Matthew Baigell, Dictionary of American Art
Peter Falk, Who Was Who in American Art
Alma Gilbert, Director of the Cornish Colony Museum, New Hampshire
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Frederic Sackrider Remington was born on October 4, 1861 in Canton, New York and brought up in that small town in northern New York, the son of a local newspaper publisher. From a very early age he showed artistic talent. In 1872 the family moved to Ogdensburg, New York, where Frederic was enrolled in a military academy at the age of fifteen. In 1878 he convinced his parents to let him take art classes at the newly formed School of Fine Arts at Yale University. He soon became discouraged with the tedious routine of academic art instruction and turned his interest to athletics; a tough fellow, he soon won respect as a boxer and adulation as a star varsity football player.
Remington's father died in 1880; the same year Frederic quit Yale after less than two years. His love of horses drew him westward. Remington had an amazing capacity to make himself at home in whatever group he joined. In the East he was at home in the best clubs, a gourmet who appreciated rich food and elegant conversation. But whenever he crossed the Missouri River, he became a frontiersman. In 1885 he studied briefly at the Art Students League in New York City. He began a career as an illustrator, achieving great fame as a specialist in cavalry life in the West and later in cowboy and Indian themes. Having exhibited paintings since 1887, he was elected an associate member of the National Academy in 1891.
He experienced frontier America from Canada to the Rio Grande; the horses he loved were key figures everywhere he went, depicted in every manner of action. Then Remington discovered that New York editors were hungry for black-and-white pictures to accompany the weekly stories in national magazines. He was a fine sculptor as well as a good writer and artist. He executed all his sculpture in the last ten years of his life. It is tragic that Remington was only forty-eight when he died as a result of uncontrolled obesity. In December of 1909, he died the morning after Christmas from a ruptured appendix.
Written and submitted by Jean Ershler Schatz, artist and researcher from Laguna Woods, California.
Sources:
James A. Michener in Reader's Digest, May 1977
Catalogue of the Timken Art Gallery |
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