The Mentor: Painters of Western Life, Vol 3, Num. 9, Serial No. 85, June 15, 1915

“The player on the other side is hidden from us. We know that his play is always fair, just, and patient. But also we know to our cost that he never overlooks a mistake or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance. To the man who plays well the highest stakes are paid, with that sort of overflowing generosity which with the strong shows delight in strength. And one who plays ill is checkmated--without haste, but without remorse.”

The Last Stand. by Frederic Remington]

“THE LAST STAND,” by Frederic Remington, a strong and stirring picture of a dramatic incident in army life, is the subject of one of the intaglio-gravure pictures illustrating “Painters of Western Life.”

Monograph Number One in The Mentor Reading Course

Remington’s life was as full of vigor and action as his pictures. Outdoor life and athletic sports were always a hobby of his. When he was at Yale he was on Walter Camp’s original football team, when Camp was practically inventing the American game, and Remington assisted him.

Frederic Remington was born at Canton, a little village in St. Lawrence County, New York State, in 1861. His father, a newspaper man, wanted to train him to follow the same profession; but Remington’s taste for dabbing at art was too strong. In the Yale Art School he picked up a little about art and a great deal about football. He could not accommodate himself to college routine; so he tried life for awhile as confidential clerk for Governor Cornell at Albany. This job was too quiet for him; so he threw it up and went out to Montana to “punch cows.” Remington became a downright, genuine cowboy, and his four years in the saddle brought him the accurate, minute knowledge of horses, Indians, cattle, and life on the plains that marks his work.

After roughing it as a cowboy, Remington went to Kansas and started a mule ranch, made some money at it, then wandered south, taking a turn as ranchman, scout, guide, and in fact anything that offered. When his money was gone his mind turned back to art. As he said, “Now that I was poor I could gratify my inclination for an artist’s career. In art, to be conventional, one must start out penniless.” So he made some drawings which the Harpers accepted. The material was fresh and full of spirit; so Remington got an order to go west and get up illustrations for a series of articles on the life of the plains. He was lucky enough to strike in on an Indian campaign. His success as an illustrator was so great that he never after lacked for commissions. He even went as far as Russia in 1892. Gradually people came to know that a new and vigorous personality had taken his stand in the field of art, and that his name was Frederic Remington. His sketches and paintings of soldiers, Indians, cowboys, and trappers were full of character, and came to be known far and wide both as illustrations and as independent works of art.

Remington brought all his subjects fresh from life straight to his canvas. He lived an active outdoor life, worked hard, and was ever seeking for new material. It was his dream to go to a real war, and in 1898 he got his chance. The well known playwright, Augustus Thomas, for years a neighbor of Remington’s, states that he called the artist up early one morning in February, 1898, and told him that the Maine had been blown up and sunk. The only thanks or comment he got was a shout from Remington, “Ring off!” As Thomas rang off he could hear Remington call the private telephone number of his publishers in New York. At that very minute the artist was in his mind already entered for war service.

The latter years of Remington’s life were spent in various trips and in periods of quiet work in his home studio at New Rochelle, New York. There anyone could find him--big, simple and good-natured, modest and plain-spoken, working out his vigorous compositions in a large roomy studio most appropriately constructed and decorated for his purpose.

His collection of relics of all sorts and from all quarters of the world was unique. Aside from his painting and modeling, Remington was justly celebrated for his writing. His descriptive powers were vivid and telling, and his stories, which fill several volumes, are full of living interest.

Remington died very suddenly of pneumonia on December 26, 1909. His place in American art is unique. There is no one quite like him. He knew his power, and he exercised it with ease and confidence. His work was his life, and his life was with strong, primitive types of men and with animals, all of whom he loved. The epitaph he wanted for himself was, “He knew the Horse.”

PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR. VOL. 3. No. 9. SERIAL No. 85 COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.

WILD HORSE HUNTERS. BY CHARLES M. RUSSELL]

“WILD HORSE HUNTERS,” by Charles M. Russell, a spirited picture of an episode in the rough life of the plains, is the subject of one of the intaglio-gravure pictures illustrating “Painters of Western Life.”

Monograph Number Two in The Mentor Reading Course

Mr. Russell belongs to no established school of art. His work is distinctly his own, and he is known as the “cowboy artist.” This does not mean, however, that there is anything careless or hasty about his art. He works with great care. His hand is trained to note every detail of his subject, and he has a memory that never lets go. Several years ago Russell had an exhibit in a gallery in New York City which he called “Pictures of the West That Has Passed.”

There was fine audacity in this. The man who had never taken a lesson in an art school and had had very little opportunity to see fine art work, who had no critic more severe than himself, took one of the big galleries in New York City for a “one-man exhibit.” Russell had the courage of his convictions, and his convictions were soon shared by art lovers; for he took his place at once among the best painters of the West.

Charles Russell was born in St. Louis in 1865, and, like Remington, had a deep-seated objection to the rules and routine of schools. The most interesting thing in the school curriculum to Russell was “vacation,” and it was his habit to add to his vacation privileges whenever he could by playing hooky. When he was fifteen he was permitted to leave school and go out to the great wild West, the land of his heart’s desire, and there he began his real education. He was no delinquent in that greater school, nor was he ever truant; for when Nature became his teacher and all outdoors his textbook he showed himself a keen and interested student.

He went to Montana when life on the range was in its glory, and the Indians were part of everyday existence. For eleven years he rode the range by choice, doing night work that he might have daylight for painting and modeling. He was ever possessed by a passion to reproduce in color or in clay the rapidly shifting scenes about him, and so, day after day and year after year, he was laying a splendid foundation for the great work that was before him. He lived among the Indians and came to know their inner life, their hopes and aspirations. He learned their sign language and customs, and so is able to depict Indians as if he were one of them. His great success has come not as a gift of the gods, but as a well earned reward after years of hard and diligent work and close application.

For several years he was known in the East just for book and magazine illustrations, usually in black and white. Then he went to New York and made himself known as a painter.

Mr. Russell spends little time in the East. Naturally he was gratified that his work won for him an immediate and distinguished place; but he was not of the mood nor had he the time to stand in the limelight. The great West was ever beckoning him back, and every summer would find him at some Indian reservation or roaming in the wild regions seeking passionately for the subjects that he loved to paint on canvas or model in clay. Other things interested him little. Russell the man is the same as Russell the schoolboy,--indifferent to books or academic matters, but eager for the things that have a living interest for him. The bargain that he used to propose to his schoolmates sounded the keynote of his life, “You get my lessons for me, and I will make you two Indians.”

PREPARED BY THE EDITORIAL STAFF OF THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR. VOL. 3. No. 9. SERIAL No. 85 COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.

My Bunkie. by Charles Schreyvogel]

“MY BUNKIE,” by Charles Schreyvogel, a picture that made a great sensation and brought the artist sudden fame, is the subject of one of the intaglio-gravure pictures illustrating “Painters of Western Life.”

Monograph Number Three in The Mentor Reading Course

“Famous overnight.” In those words Charles Schreyvogel was hailed in 1900. The sound of the words was good and cheery; but Charles Schreyvogel knew well enough that his fame had been much longer than “overnight” in coming. It was only after many vicissitudes and disheartening struggles that he came into the recognition of his colleagues and the general public. When he did win out, however, his victory was so complete and so enduring that he will remain always one of the most distinguished painters of American frontier life.

Charles Schreyvogel was a New York City boy, born in 1861, and was educated in the public schools. He began life apprenticed to a gold-beater, and later on was apprenticed in turn to a die-sinker and lithographer. His pronounced artistic talents could not be denied, and his private studies finally led up to an opportunity to go to Munich, where at the age of twenty-five he studied for three years under Frank Kirschbach and Carl Marr. On his return to America he went west, and there lived for awhile the life of the plains, the mountains, the Indian agencies, and the army barracks. He was fascinated with the wild life of the frontier, and devoted himself eagerly to the study of horses, Indians, and troopers in full action.

Then began the story of “My Bunkie.” While engaged in painting Schreyvogel was in the habit of making sketches for lithographers as a matter of bread winning. Being sadly in need of funds, he offered one of his paintings to a lithographer who needed a subject for a calendar. The painting was “My Bunkie,” and Schreyvogel set great store by it. The lithographer rejected it because it would not cut down well to the dimensions of his calendar. Then the artist tried it out in one place and another, and failing to get it published, he sought permission to hang it in an East Side restaurant in New York, in the hope that someone might become interested in it and buy it for at least a moderate sum. To his utter discouragement he found a short time after that his picture was not even hung in the restaurant.