£2,500
Charles Marion Russell (USA, 1864-1926)
Portrait of Royal Canadian Regiment Private, 1888
Watercolour & pencil on paper
Signed with the initials CMR to bottom left
Measures approx. 19.5cm x 28.5cm (7.5" x 11")
Framed & glazed
A watercolour on paper painting depicting a seated Private from the Royal Canadian Regiment lighting up a pipe. Inscription reading ' To Al from CMR. 1888 ' to bottom left.
RUSSELL, CHARLES MARION, artist; born 19th March 1864 in St Louis, Missouri, to Charles Silas Russell (1833–1917) and Mary Mead Russell (1835–1895). His first visit to Canada was a key event in Russell’s life. He rode north from Helena, Montana, with two friends in late May 1888. Russell spends about three months in Alberta, and reportedly spends time with local Blood (Kainai) Indians.
Russell returned to Helena in September, leaving behind some sketches, a finished painting of a bear, and, most impressively, an ambitious oil that he gave to Blunt, Canadian mounted police bringing in Red Indian prisoners, recording an incident witnessed on the ride north in May. In later paintings and drawings he would honour the mounted police as symbols of justice on the Canadian frontier, a notable subject for an artist who ignored the United States army’s role in “winning the west” and sympathized with the Indians in their resistance to white advance.
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