Frederic Remington

Frederic Remington
American artist
born 1861 - died 1909

Fredric Remington was born in Canton, New York October 4, 1861. He was brought up during the Civil War, his boyhood passions consisted of riding, boating, fishing, hunting, the military and the great outdoors. During school he enjoyed sketching and doodling different objects especially soldiers in military uniforms.

 As a young adult Remington tried many different avenues of interest. He tried college, and dropped out in 1880 when his father died of an abrupt illness. Then he ventured out into the business world, but most of these government and business endeavors only lasted a few months.
In the summer of 1879 Frederic Remington met and began wooing Eva Adele Caten, and in the fall of 1884 they were married. The couple tried the wearying Western frontier life for a time but quickly opted to move to the city of Brooklyn, New York. Due to some bad dealings in business and difficulties in life, she left and returned to her father’s home.
Remington then went and wandered in the desert for several weeks, a kind of purging of the soul. After which, he returned to claim his wife and all his rightful responsibilities.
Shortly after his arrival in New York, he solicited work with Harper’s Weekly using his portfolio of western sketches. Frederic Remington then set out to prove himself as an artist. It was during this time that his art career bloomed and developed into one of the most prolific artistes of his time. In his sketches Frederic Remington portrayed the subject matter that most captivated his interests; horses, military and the western frontier. And in return he made these interests the interests of the public. - on canvas oil painting on wood, he Bio by America oil paintings of America Frederic Remington.
Remington thought this of his art work, “Cowboys are my cash.” The first of his attempts in sculpting was The Broncho Buster. In the public eye Remington is reputed to be America’s most popular nineteenth century Western artist.
December 1909, at the apex of his career and the prime of his life Remington suddenly died from a ruptured appendix. Remington was a man who loved the vigours adventures of the outdoors; taking others with him on long trail rides, nature hikes, fishing and hunting trips. His work has and always will inspire this same love and appreciation in others, for the rustic life of the West and the great outdoors.

Most people know of the names of the great Indian tribes, such as the Commanche, Sioux, Apache and many others, while chiefs such as Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Geronimo and Chief Joseph, have become equally famous universally. Artists in America during the 19th century depicted Indians in their paintings, concerned with describing their appearances, customs and ways of life. They also presented the best-known images of Western life. The most important painters of this time, Remington and Charles Marion Russell, were technically accurate and also sensational. They represented scenes of cowboys and Indians, gamblers, gunfighters, saloons and all the paraphernalia of the Hollywood Western.

Frederic Remington had formal training at the Yale School of Art and at the Art Students' League before he went West for health reasons. He was primarily an illustrator, working for many magazines such as Harper's Weekly and Outing. In the Spanish-American War he served as a war correspondent and artist. Frederic Remington had an unusual approach to color: he used it extremely successfully to set a mood, to strike an atmospheric note. Remington often chose a single dominant color, applying paint richly and roughly, around which the rest of the picture was composed. During the last twenty years of his life he executed a powerful series of twenty-four bronzes to great success, which also helped raise Remington to a position of real significance in the history of 19th-century American art. His first, "Bronco Buster" (1895, one casting in New-York Historical Society, New York City) displays the vigor and sense of movement of his paintings. His subsequent bronzes, such as "Comin' Through the Rye" (1902, Metropolitan Museum), in which four cowhands on horseback charge at the observer in glee, are daring for their technical skill in suspending large figures on slim supports, in this case on the hooves of the horses. Among the books Frederic Remington wrote and illustrated are "Pony Tracks" (1895), "Crooked Trails" (1898), and "The Way of an Indian" (1906). Frederic Remington died in 1909, having produced nearly three thousand paintings.

James Chillman, former Director of the Houston Museum of Fine Art, said of Frederic Remington, "Some people tell stories so well that their method of telling becomes identified with themselves."

"I paint for boys," Remington said, "boys from ten to seventy. I knew the wild riders and the vacant lands were about to vanish forever...and the more I considered the subject, the bigger the forever loomed. Without knowing how to do it, I began to record some facts around me, and the more I looked the more the panorama unfolded."

July, 1907, President Roosevelt said of Remington, "He is of course, one of the most typical artists we have ever had, and Frederic Remington has portrayed a most characteristic and yet vanished type of American life. The soldier, the cowboy and rancher, the Indian, the horses and the cattle of the plains, will live in his pictures and bronzes, I verily believe, for all time." - Toperfect offer Remington paintings and biography.

Frederic Sackrider Remington was born in Canton, NY, October 1861, the son of a newspaper owner who established the successful St. Lawrence Plaindealer in 1856. Two months following his son's birth, Seth Pierre Remington would leave his family and business to help establish Swain's Cavalry, a regiment that won fame as the Fighting 11th New York . After four years of skirmishing in western campaigns, Seth returned home a distinguished lieutenant colonel and resumed his business.

An indifferent student, Frederic's boyhood enthusiasm centered on caring for the local fire-wagon horse team, swimming, boxing, football, and his sketch-book of horses, soldiers, cowboys, wild Indians, and imagined battles. A Yale Art professor described him as "a queer looking student, frequently having his face and legs bandaged."

Eighteen-eighty was a cruel year. Remington lost his father, left school, failed at several clerical jobs, and fell in love with a young woman named Eva Caten. Unfortunately, Eva's father denied the courtship because of Frederic's uncertain financial position. Broken, the young man fled Westward, to free his spirit and make the fortune needed to win his love.

In his twenties, Remington worked as a cowboy, rancher, saloon keeper, store merchant, and as an Indian mediator-all the time, sketching and painting. The artist had discovered his medium and journal's like Harper's Weekly quickly discovered him. Remington returned to New York and married Eva.

Remington worked with in oil, water color, wash, and pen-and ink. Many of his artworks were based on saddles, boots, uniforms, Indian gear, weapons, and other objects he collected in his western travels-recreating cowboys in his New York studio. In 1890, Remington illustrated Longfellow's epic limited-edition poem, The Song of Hiawatha. In 1893, ninety-six of his pictures sold at an American Art Association Show for the amazing sum of $7,008. October 1, 1895, his first sculpture, Bronco Buster, was copyrighted. Three weeks later Harper's Weekly devoted a full page to the two foot tall bronze model masterpiece. Remington rejoiced in his new success. "I have always had a feeling for mud," Frederic Remington said.

Remington's one monumental bronze, The Cowboy, was unveiled in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, June 20, 1908.

Remington and Eva achieved fame and wealth in their lifetime. In 1908, at age 48, Frederic was made an Associate Member of the National Academy of Design. Sadly, Remington died a year later of appendicitis.  Why not purchase Remington paintings on canvas and read the full biography about him?

During the last 20 years of his life, he worked at a frantic pace. Frederic Remington authored several books and scores of magazine articles. He served as a war correspondent. He modeled 24 bronze sculptures and over 2,700 pictures that are still being copied today.

We will talk collecting and seeing authentic Remington art next week. Until then, happy trails.

During a career that spanned less than twenty-five years, he produced a huge body of work illustration, painting, sculpture, fiction and non-fiction - the vast majority of it centered on the West. His influence in shaping the West of the popular imagination cannot be overstated.

The titles of oil painting old master Frederic Remington