Remington's West and The Popular Prints

Remington's West & The Popular Prints

In 1881, a young artist from upstate New York sold his first illustration of a Western subject to "Harper's Weekly". Frederic S. Remington (1861-1909) had only briefly toured the West a year earlier but had long been fascinated with the region. Although that first sketch was redrawn by staff artists, Remington steadily improved his work until by 1886, he was one of the most popular illustrators in America. By and large, his subject matter was the West; the romance and drama that he found there shaped his entire career. Of all those artists who have chosen the West as their subject, to the present, none are more widely known than Remington. His work was circulated to a huge audience through popular magazines like Harper's and Colliers; books, such as Longfellow's "Song of Hiawatha", or Francis Parkman's "Oregon Trail"; and through the issuance of prints, such as the ones displayed here.

The prints on display were produced during Remington's lifetime and are based on his paintings. They represent not only some of Remington's finest Western scenes, but also illustrate Remington's development as a businessman. The black and white series, commonly known as the "General Miles Series", first appeared in 1897 as illustrations for the "Personal Recollections of General Nelson A. Miles". Remington had met Miles early in his career. On several occasions, Miles had provided Remington with access to army outposts and campaigns. In return, Remington had written many favorable articles on the General's exploits, articles that helped Miles attain increasingly more prestigious assignments. When Miles published his autobiography, he turned to Remington for suitable illustrations. The paintings selected covered a wide range of the General's career in the West; some of the incidents pictured, such as the surrender of Chief Joseph, occurred before Remington went west, others picture scenes that Remington might have actually witnessed.

General Miles' memoir was quite successful, thanks in no small part to Remington's illustrations. The Werner Company in Chicago decided that Remington's work could be a windfall in and of itself and published a book containing only the illustrations. Because of a loophole in his contract, Remington received no royalties from that publication, nor did he receive any royalties from the publication of the prints that are shown here. Because the prints were unauthorized by the artist and because he threatened legal action, relatively few editions were printed. Although the book contained 15 illustrations, only 14 prints were issued. Today, complete sets are rare - the set of 13 prints shown here is one of the few to have that many of the original series.

The "General Miles Prints" taught Remington a valuable lesson. From then on he made arrangements to sell the original paintings or drawings, the rights to publish those drawings, and the rights to issue prints. One example is the "Bunch of Buckskins" series displayed in the exhibition. The prints are based on eight original pastels and were published as a portfolio which included a foreword by Remington's friend, Owen Wister. Both prints and pastels were conceived as a single project, the pastels were commissioned in order to produce the prints.

It is fortunate for the Remington enthusiast that so much of his work was done for reproduction. Extremely critical of his own achievements as an artist, Remington was occasionally given to destroying his original paintings, sometimes several dozen at a time. Many of his works are known
today only from the reproductions. The widespread distribution of Remington's work in the popular weeklies and elsewhere led to these images becoming some of the best known of all artists' visions of the West. They attest to a level of popularity that no other western artist has come close to achieving.