Charles Marion Russell (1864–1926) was born in St. Louis and grew up with a hankering for the cowboy life. By the time he was born, America had been undergoing a massive expansion westward since the Mexican-American War victory and the discovery of gold in California, both taking place in 1848.
By the time he turned 16, he moved to the the Judith Basin of central Montana to become a working cowboy. His first gig was as a shepherd on a sheep farm. It was not a success, and he quit. Without grub or money, he got on his horse and strode along the Judith River. The river would lead him to good luck.
“While I was wondering where my next meal was coming from, a rider with several packhorses appeared and made his camp on the river near mine,” he recalled to the Great Falls Tribune in 1903. “I recognized him as Jake Hoover.”
Hoover was a prospector, hunter, and trader with a cabin at the South Fork of the Judith River. He ranged wide expanses hunting and trapping elk, deer, bear and other animals, providing meat and fur for miners and ranchers. Hoover would teach Russell all he needed to learn in order to survive in the Wild West. Russell remained with Hoover over the next two years as a friend, apprentice, and cabin mate.
Russell was now ready to be a cowboy. But he also had a penchant for artistry. The two interests would coincide over the next decade as he spent most of his days on a ranch or living with Indians, such as the Blood Tribe of southern Canada. He sketched his experiences with whatever utensil he possessed, pencil or paintbrush, on whatever material he could find: paper or canvas.
When the owners of the ranch requested information from him about how their cattle were faring in the storms, he sent a watercolored postcard that showed a starved cow standing in thick snow encircled by wolves. He named the painting “Waiting for a Chinook.”
At Home in Montana
While he continued working the ranches of Montana, he continued painting and sketching images of cowboys, Indians, and life on the range and plains. After a decade of working as a cowboy and a wrangler, his artistic work was in such demand that he retired to Great Falls in 1893 with the intention of becoming a full-time artist.
When he married Nancy Cooper in 1896, she became his business manager and promoter. Her efforts pushed his career to stardom, as she worked to place his art before buyers in New York City and London.
As his fame soared, he preferred to remain grounded in the American West, specifically Montana. At the turn of the century, he and his wife built a house and a log studio where many of his greatest works were created. Over the course of his life, he would paint, sketch, or sculpt (in wax, clay, plaster, and bronze) approximately 4,000 pieces of art. Among his works were several that commemorated his time with Hoover, like “Mountain Retreat,” “When I Was a Kid,” “A Doubtful Guest,” “The Deerslayer,” and “Hunter’s Rest.”
He died of a heart attack in 1926, but his memory and his work lives on. He was inducted into the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame in 1985, was added to the St. Louis Walk of Fame in 1991, and was inducted into the inaugural class of the Montana Outdoor Hall of Fame in 2014. Modern appreciation for his work can hardly be summed up better than when his “Piegans” painting sold for $5.6 million in 2005.
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