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Artcyclopedia

Russell was born in St. Louis. He hated school with its rules and lessons. So he drew in the margins of his notebooks, and he spent as much time as he could at the waterfront, listening to the mountain men, miners, riverboat sailors and cowboys.

A week before his 16th birthday (March 1880) his parents agreed to send him to Montana with a family friend ("Pike" Miller) to work on a sheep ranch in the Judith Basin. He traveled by train and stage. Once when the stage stopped he saw a bleached buffalo skull. This became his trademark.

He lost sheep as soon as they gave them to him, so he eventually lost the job. He was taken in for two years by Jake Hoover, a trapper. It was during this time that Russell learned the animal anatomy which benefited him later.

He eventually found a job as a night wrangler. He gained recognition during the winter of 1886-87 with Waiting for a Chinook. One man offered to send him to art school in Philadelphia, but Russell chose to spend six months with the Blood Indians in Canada. From that time he always pictured the Native Americans favorably, with the whites as intruders and not conquerors. They named him Ah-wah-cous (antelope) and at least once he used this animal as his trademark.

Charles Green, a bartender in Great Falls, MT, tried to work out a partnership with Russell, but the terms were too restrictive.

In 1896 he married Nancy Cooper (he was 31 and she was 16). She took care of finances (he would trade a painting for a bottle of whiskey). He became famous for his often humorous scenes of Western life.

When he died in 1926 his funeral procession was entirely horse-drawn. Honorary pallbearers included his good friends Will Rogers, Irvin S. Cobb and William S. Hart.

Today his paintings are worth as much as a ranch. He produced 4,500 pieces of art. His works are often forged (39 forgeries discovered by one man in one year).

In the capitol building in Washington there is only one statue of a full-time artist: Charles Russell.

Russell was a real cowboy...not a rustler.