American

Frederic Remington

U.S. 1861-1909
Bronco Buster 63.1071

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In 1895, Frederic Remington tried his hand at sculpting, beginning with a variation on the traditional equestrian statue, substituting a cowboy for the heroic leader and angling the horse. The result, Bronco Buster, became the classic model for all later representations of the American horse and its rider. Perhaps no other western artist other than Charles Russell has more comprehensively captured the myth of the American cowboy. Born in Canton, New York, and educated at Yale, Remington set out at age nineteen, upon the death of his father, to experience the American West, the open range, and the cowboy way of life. He first supplied images for Harper's Weekly illustrating incidents in the military campaign against Geronimo. Other publishers soon asked for his work, including the publishers of Teddy Roosevelt's articles about life among the cowboys. Remington's fanatic attention to details, particularly those regarding horses and the cavalry, lent authenticity to his work. Before he was thirty, Remington worked as a rancher, survived capture by Indians in Dakota territory, rode with the army in military operations against the Indians, and traveled extensively throughout the west. His sketches provided the subject for numerous oils produced in his New Rochelle, New York studio.

 

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