REMINGTON : APACHE SCOUT

Frederic Remington (1861-1909) was born in Canton, New York. In 1876 he enrolled at Highland Military Academy, Worcester, Massachusetts and two years later he left to enroll at Yale College School of Art where he attended three semesters.

Attracted by adventure and movement, Frederic Remington defined by his work (thousands of drawings, sculptures, writings and paintings) the American West during his lifetime and played a major role in creating the popular image of the West that persists today.

In both painting and sculpture, he portrayed the action and drama of the West. Remington's subjects, the military, the cowboy and the American Indian, centered on conflict. In some of his best works, conflict was not only the subject, but also created the aesthetic tension of the artwork.

In 1882 Harper's Weekly publishes his first illustration and in 1886 he attended the Art Students League, New York, travelled to Arizona, Mexico, and New Mexico which will be a great source of his inspiration. In 1888, his illustrations appeared in Theodore Roosevelt's serialized articles for Century Magazine and the next year he won a Silver medal at Paris International Exposition.

In 1889, he travelled to Cuba to cover Spanish-American War for Harper's and New York Journal. In 1890, Remington, in his rush to record the last days of the frontier West, he joined the U. S. Army cavalry in their campaign against the warring Sioux Indians in the Dakotas, the same campaign that included the extermination of General Custer's command. Remington was a phenomenal artist of the kind Europe has seen almost none, by his willingness to live the same life as his sitters and depicted exactly what he saw.

He died too early on December, 26th 1909 of peritonitis following emergency appendectomy at his Ridgefield, Connecticut home. During his short life, Remington produced more than 3,000 drawings and paintings, 22 bronze sculptures - cast in editions, two novels - one of which was adapted to the stage - and over 100 magazine articles and stories.

This Apache scouting was sold on auction in 1980 for $320,000. His works and his life are still very much vividly remembered by the F.Remington Art Museum in Ogdensburg, NY.