Frederic Remington

(American, 1861 - 1909)

“The artist must know more than the camera…”
— Frederic Remington

Frederic Remington was an American painter, illustrator, sculptor, and writer from the Western American genre. His works are renowned for featuring Western subject matter such as cowboys, Native Americans, and the US cavalry toward the end of the 19th century. He was also the first artist to accurately depict the horse in motion, which would become Remington’s signature subject, in his freeze-frame yet action-filled paintings. His impact on Western illustration was so successful that other contenders of his time, such as Charles Schreyvogel or Charles Russell, were considered members of the “school of Remington.” His works were mostly realistic and naturalistic, with hints of impressionism towards his later years. His color palette, although often criticized, expressed his visual understanding of nature and light with an imaginative quality. Remington’s ability to portray the politics and events of the American West through various artistic media allowed him to play a significant role in art history. His works have helped shape the world’s perception of the American west from the start of his career into the 21st century.

Frederic Remington was born on October 4, 1861 in Canton, New York into a family of French immigrants. The Remington family were horsemen and played an active role in local politics, with ancestry leading back to many famous names such as mountain man, Jedediah Smith; former US president, George Washington; and Eliphalet Remington, founder of Remington Arms Company. Frederic Remington was an only child and received plenty of support from his parents, although his father, a Union Army Colonel, was often away during the American Civil War. Remington participated in the usual childhood activities of his time like riding, hunting, swimming, etc., but he did not perform well in school, at much dismay to his father who desired a military life for his son. In 1872, the Remington’s relocated to Ogdensburg, New York where Frederic attended Vermont Episcopal Institute. Here, he began his first drawing courses. Remington never had labor-intensive ambitions for himself like joining the military; he imagined a career in the arts from a very young age. In 1878, Remington attended the School of Fine Arts at Yale University where he studied under John Henry Niemeyer. Uninterested in such formal art training, Remington left Yale in 1879. His father died from tuberculosis a year later, and Remington moved to Albany, New York to work for his uncle. He continued to work odd jobs, enjoying himself while living off his inheritance and income, until his lifelong interest in the American west began to take direction.

Remington set out on his first trip West in the summer of 1881, starting in Wyoming. Over the next few years, he visited many states and territories such as Kansas, Missouri, and New Mexico. He pursued various business opportunities including cattle operations, ranching, hardware sales, and saloon operations, but each proved unsuccessful. In February of 1882, Remington’s first published artwork, a sketch of a Wyoming cowboy, appeared in an issue of popular political magazine Harper’s Weekly. Remington returned home to New York in 1844 to marry Eva Caten, who had been his love interest since his young adulthood. After their relocation to Kansas City, Caten expressed much unhappiness with Remington’s capricious lifestyle, and she returned home to Ogdensburg. Once again, Remington was alone and broke, so he began bartering and selling his artworks to get by. He found success in selling his works locally, and for the first time, Remington felt confident that art could be his profession. He returned home to New York where he would reunite with his wife and secure his new career.

The couple moved to Brooklyn in 1886 where Remington spent three months studying at the Art Students League. From then on, Remington’s illustrations would be published over 40 times in various periodicals such as Harper’s Weekly, Collier’s, and Century Magazine. He continued to travel to and from the West, collecting sufficient reference material for a seemingly endless influx of commission work. In 1887, Remington was commissioned by President Theodore Roosevelt to create 83 illustrations for his book, which gave Remington a major career boost and sparked Roosevelt and Remington’s lifelong friendship. His paintings began to rise in popularity and distinction after the exhibition of his painting Return of the Blackfoot War Party at the National Academy of Design that same year. In 1889, Remington won second place at the Paris Exposition, further establishing his prominence within the art scene. Remington had his first one-man show in 1890 at the American Art Galleries, featuring 21 of his paintings. Later that year, Remington and his wife moved to New Rochelle, New York into a house on Lathers Hill, the prestigious country estate of Colonel Richard Lathers. In 1891, Remington was elected as an associate member of the National Academy of Design. Around this time, he began working with watercolors and exhibiting works with the American Watercolor Society. Throughout the 1890’s, Remington continued to travel throughout the Western US and Mexico, creating popular pieces like The Mier Expedition and Fighting over a stolen herd, which appeared in his article about Florida cowboys in Harper’s Magazine.

It wasn’t until 1895 when Remington began sculpting with the help of his friend and sculptor, Frederick Ruckstull. Several months after creating his first clay model, Broncho Buster, Remington would have bronze sculptures on display at fine establishments like Tiffany & Co., and he would sculpt over 22 bronze pieces within his lifetime. His love for Western subjects translated well into his new skill, while many of his sculptures were inspired by his own paintings. The mastery of a new medium thrilled Remington, but he began to grow tired of routine illustration and became more interested in military affairs. In 1897, he was hired by William Randolph Hearst as a war correspondent for the New York Journal and was sent to Cuba. His disillusioning experience of the war led to popular pieces like Scream of the Shrapnel (1899) that shows an attack on American troops at battle. In 1898, the US Postal Service honored Remington by reproducing two of his paintings into stamps. Throughout the early 1900’s, Remington continued to illustrate, sculpt, and paint; nocturnal paintings became popular in his later work as seen in pieces like A Taint on the Wind (1906) and Fired On (1907). He produced two different illustrated novels as well as a stage play until giving up on writing and illustrating due to its poor success. He went so far as to burn several of his pieces used for magazine illustration in a bonfire to emphasize the end of his illustration career. He focused on painting and sculpting, creating his only large-scale bronze piece titled Cowboy for a Philadelphia park in 1908 as one of America’s first site-specific art installations. By the financial panic of 1907, Remington’s career began to calm with a decrease in sales and an increase in competition among other genres. Toward the end of his life, Remington began to implement an impressionist style into his paintings in attempt to keep up with competition. He moved to Ridgefield, Connecticut in 1909. On December 26, 1909, Remington died from complications during an appendectomy. His health had declined significantly in his later years due to obesity and chronic appendicitis.

Remington’s artistic and historical impact continued to be recognized long after his death. The Frederic Remington Art Museum was founded in 1923 in Ogdensburg, New York and is dedicated to showcasing the artist’s life works. It is located in the building that Remington’s wife had resided in following his death. The original collection featured paintings, sculptures, and possessions from his wife’s estate, and the museum has since acquired many other purchases and donations. The US Postal Service honored him again in 1940 when his portrait was used in the “Famous Americans” stamp series. In 1965, his Connecticut home was named a National Historic Landmark. The US Congress renamed the historic post office in Ogdensburg to the Frederic Remington Post Office Building in 2009. Significant collections of his pieces are on display in many museums across the US, including the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyoming, the Metropolitan Museum in New York City, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas, and the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Frederic Remington was arguably the most influential American Western artist of his time, having left the world with an outstanding and highly revered collection of works.

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