Frederic Remington

Frederic Remington was born on October 4, 1861, in Canton, New York. Related to the early western painter George Catlin, Frederic attended the art school at Yale University, but dropped out when his father died, soon went west to Kansas City. He married Eva Caten in 1884 and after trying the frontier life, moved back to Brooklyn. He began to submit illustrations, sketches, and other works with western themes for publication. Much of his early work appeared in Collier's and Harper's. A prolific artist, his technical ability meant he could reproduce the physical beauty of the west, and his insight into the historic nature of American settlers made him possibly America's greatest western artist.

Unlike Charlie Russell who lived the life of a wrangler, Remington spent little time out west, but he captured the scenes in a way that fueled the eastern fantasy of the "Wild West" in a way that no one else did. He was just in time to show the west before the wilder elements were subdued and this frisson of deadly excitement gave Remington's works great appeal.

Remington, of course, was not just a painter. Trying sculpture in the mid-1890s, he quickly mastered a medium that gave a new dimension to his subjects, charging them with such detail, movement, and energy that they seemed ready to leap to life. Over the course of his career, Frederic Remington produced more than 3,000 drawings and paintings, and 22 bronze sculptures-representative selection of which are collected together in this book.

Sandra Forty is a historian with a particular interest in architecture and art and has written a number of books on both subjects. Also a keen gardener, she lives in the south west with her husband and two children.