Title is "Piegan Brave". 6.5" tall. Charles M. Russell, the nostalgic, held tight memories of a youthful past when the West belonged to God. There was a sense of loss, as poignant as losing a loved one. The specter of what this loss meant loomed over Russell the rest of his life. He was the quintessential nostalgic who grabbed history and married it to idealized memory and imagination. For example, despite Russell never witnessing a buffalo hunt, it became the basis for his most popular and desired art. Nancy Russell explained, "No man can be a painter without imagination." The Romantic art of the nineteenth century was the cornerstone to build the West reimagined for not only Russell, but also his contemporaries and future artists. No Western American artist fought back harder against racism, sexism, and championed environmentalism more than did Charles M. Russell. He thrived on imagining a time when the land was pristine, women were held in high regard, and people of color were the heroes. Paradoxically, the industrialized world championed just the opposite. To many, his life appeared odd—that cowboy hat, that sash, that unruly hair, that folksy talk. He and his art embraced an identity of an exile from a different place and time, which is even more appealing today. In that way, Russell was a visionary who instilled hope in all who saw his art, and his heart. For those reasons and much more, he is the most beloved of all the Western American artists. The Charles M. Russell Museum in Great Falls, Montana; the Charles M. Russell Center for the Study of Art of the American West at the University of Oklahoma in Norman; the Charles M. Russell Center Series on Art and Photography of the American West (books published by the University of Oklahoma University Press); the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge in Montana; the Russell Riders; and the Russell Skull Society are a testament to that fact. The Cowboy Artists of America have been called “The Sons of Charlie Russell” by art historian B. Byron Price for good reason. Russell was a legendary painter, sculptor, and author. Ever humble and self-effacing, as his fame skyrocketed, he never forgot his cowboy friends. The importance of his life and works is that no one has inspired more new generations of artists. Russell lived in the past and his wife Nancy who was his business manager lived for the future. How could a self-trained artist living in remote Montana become the highest paid artist in America? It’s quite a story. Charles Marion Russell was born on March 19, 1864 in St. Louis, Missouri, a bustling gateway to the West of some 200,000 people. Family history and adventure stories such as the Leatherstocking Tales by James Fenimore Cooper lured Russell to the West. On a crisp March day in 1880 Charles M. Russell jumped off the stagecoach in Helena, Montana Territory and took his turn as the latest easterner seeking western adventure. Accompanying him was Willis L.W. “Pike” Miller, a family acquaintance who acted as Russell’s guardian and gave him his first job in Montana on a sheep ranch Miller owned in the Judith Basin. While Miller was kind enough to chaperone Russell, they soon parted ways because Russell wanted nothing to do with sheepherding. For twelve years Russell and his horse Monte were together on the open range mainly nighthawking—somewhat of a lowly cowboy job of watching the horses overnight while the rest of the cowboys slept—until 1893 when Russell began transitioning from cowboy artist to full-time artist. Only a teenager, Russell was younger than most cowboys who were usually in their early twenties but shared with them the qualities of being gregarious, humble, energetic and adventuresome. Charlie saw the cowboy as the last frontiersman—unlike the colorless overburdened farmer and sheep herder. The period from 1906 to 1910 was one of the most productive and enjoyable times of Charlie’s life, which in no small part was due to the summers at Bull Head Lodge and the mentoring by others such as Philip R. Goodwin who visited him there in 1907 and 1910. Glacier National Park has the type of views that keep postcard publishers in business. The mountains fanned the flames of Charlie Russell’s creative genius. He understood that the mountains don’t need us, we need the mountains. Charlie’s favorite place in the world was the lodge, a log structure nestled among the cedar, fir, and tamarack along the shoreline of beautiful Lake McDonald. The years from 1911 to 1915 were a time of artistic achievement by Russell and promotion by Nancy who was as skilled as any field general with her well planned exhibitions in America, Canada, and England. It would be a grueling pace for the duo, but one that would yield a bountiful harvest of financial and critical success. The cowboy artist was “The West That Had Passed” in solid and photogenic form: strong, handsome, romantic, principled, loyal, productive and real. Nancy’s strategy was the same as any rodeo organizer: open the gates—which she did, and let ‘r buck— which Charlie much obliged. In 1911 Russell met with state officials regarding a mural that was planned for the new House of Representatives wing of the capitol. It would be the most important commission of his life. By July 1912 the twenty-five foot long Lewis and Clark Meeting Indians at Ross’ Hole was delivered to the capitol two months ahead of schedule and was instantly hailed as Russell’s masterpiece. The Minneapolis Sunday Journal summarized the sentiments around the country and wrote that it was “his best and most finished product.” When the Russells arrived in California in February 1920 for their first winter there, the movie industry employed ten thousand people and was churning out hundreds of movies each year. Charlie was closest with Harry Carey, Willliam S. Hart, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., and Will Rogers. In 1925 Nancy meet with Edward and Estelle Doheny to work out the final details for a frieze Charlie was working on for their home. Final approval for the project was granted by Mrs. Doheny, which meant a $30,000 payment—one of his largest commissions—to the Russell’s after the frieze was installed in their Los Angeles mansion. The end for Charlie came at night on October 24, 1926 in Great Falls when he suffered a heart attack. After an earlier heart attack, Nancy died on May 23, 1940 in Huntington Memorial Hospital in California. She was buried next to Charlie in Highland Cemetery in Great Falls. Her death went essentially unnoticed in a country that was on the brink of another world war. Still, nineteen years after Nancy died, her dream came true when in 1959 a bronze statue of Charlie was installed in Statuary Hall of the House of Representatives in Washington, D.C. It was a seven-foot high bronze by Jack Weaver of Butte, Montana. Representing Montana, Russell is the only artist in Statuary Hall. His friend, Oklahoman Will Roger, keeps him company.