Radisson and Groseilliers

Frederic Remington spent a few formative years out West and the rest of his life turning that material into pictures, sculpture and magazine illustration. He covered the Indian Wars as a correspondent, sold heavily to Harper’s Weekly, and shaped how Americans east of the Mississippi pictured the frontier. His horses were criticised until photography settled the argument about how a galloping animal actually moves, at which point his instinct was partly vindicated. The bronzes, particularly The Bronco Buster, sold well and are still widely reproduced. The late paintings are the surprise. In his final years he moved toward nocturnes, small groups around fires under blue darkness, with the illustrator’s clarity stripped out. He died at forty eight from appendicitis, just as that shift was taking hold.