Biografie von Frederic Sackrider REMINGTON (1861-1909)

Birth place: Canton, NY

Death place: Ridgefield, CT

Addresses: New Rochelle, NY; Ridgefield, CT

Profession: Painter, illustrator, sculptor, writer

Studied: Vermont Episcopal Inst.; Yale Art Sch., 1878-79; ASL, c.1885, otherwise self-taught.

Exhibited: NAD, 1887-99; Boston AC, 1890, 1891, 1909; Paris Expo, 1889, (med.); PAFA Ann., 1892-93, 1906-10; Corcoran Gal. annuals, 1907-08; AIC

Member: ANA, 1891; NIAL.

Work: Amon Carter Mus. (major coll.); Remington AM, Ogdensburg, NY (major coll.); NMAA; MMA; AIC; Gilcrease Inst.; Ogdensburg (NY) Pub. Lib.; NYPL; Shelburne (VT) Mus.; other major museums.

Comments: Lauded as the most important painter documenting life in the vanishing West. His paintings were based on first-hand experiences, and everything that happened on the plains or in the mining camps served as his subject matter. He made numerous trips to the West and became skilled as a cowboy. He also prospected for gold in the Apache country of the Arizona Territory, and in Kansas operated a ranch and worked in a saloon. He spent winters in NYC, writing and painting, and winters in the West, Canada, or Mexico. His first commission was for Harper's Weekly in 1882, when he drew a picture of Geronimo"s campaign. He began creating bronzes of western subjects in 1895, winning immediate attention with his first work, The Bronco Buster." His bronzes became very popular and were reproduced in multiple series. In his lifetime, Remington produced about 25 bronzes, plus 3,000 paintings and drawings, and eight books. He also traveled to North Africa, Russia, Germany, England, Mexico, and Cuba as an artist-correspondent. One of his last sculptures was the cowboy statue erected in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia. From c.1886 he occupied a large studio which he had built at New Rochelle, NY; but about six months before his death he sold it and moved to Ridgefield, CT. Remington died of appendicitis a the age of forty-eight.

Sources: WW10; Peter H. Hassrick, Frederick Remington: Paintings, Drawings, and Sculpture in the Amon Carter Museum and the Sid W. Richardson Collections (1973); Bruce Wear, The Bronze World of Frederic Remington (Tulsa, OK, 1966); Baigell, Dictionary; P&H Samuels, 395; Muller, Paintings and Drawings at the Shelburne Museum, 118 (w/repros.); Eldredge, et al., Art in New Mexico, 1900-1945, 206; Falk, Exh. Record Series.