Our current exhibition, Charles M. Russell: Storyteller Across Media, focuses on the artist’s talent and ability to tell stories – largely set in the American West – through his art. When Hollywood emerged in the 20th century and began producing Westerns, many of the great film directors like John Ford often looked to artists like Russell as a visual model for storytelling. How does one tell the story of a Western? And what happens when the themes of the Western, this quintessential American genre, transform through changes in cultural constructions and acquire new meanings when it transcends ..read more

Our current exhibition, Charles M. Russell: Storyteller Across Media, centers around the artist’s talent to tell stories through his visual art. Famous for his narratives set in the open range of Montana, Russell wasn’t the only storyteller of the American West. In the early 20th century, Chip of the Flying U was a popular novel about a ranch in Montana and was written by B. M. Bower. Who was this writer? She was Bertha Muzzy Bower, likely the first female author of mass-market Western fiction.   Portrait of B. M. Bower, circa 1890. Courtesy Cascade County Historical Society   Bowe ..read more

This past summer, our director Scott Winterrowd took a work trip up to Montana to visit and document the sites where Charles Russell lived and worked. Throughout the cowboy artist’s career, he was not always specific about the landscapes he painted as backdrops for his artworks. Instead, like many other artists, Russell would translate what he saw through his artistic lens and his own way of looking at the world. Often, the resulting landscape would be a compression of the vast spaces of “Big Sky” country. One of the main points of inspiration for Russell was in what is now known as Glacier Na ..read more

During his residence in Montana, Charles Russell encountered Indigenous people, both on the northern plains of the state and from neighboring tribes in Alberta, Canada. He lived in the area where Plains Indian Sign Language (PISL), also known as Hand Talk among the Native community, was an important communication system among the Plains tribal members. Due to his relationships with many members of nearby Indigenous tribes, Russell learned signs of PISL and incorporated them into some of his paintings.   Mapping of North American Indian Sign Language     Outline of correspondi ..read more

Our current exhibit, Charles M. Russell: Storyteller Across Media, focuses on all the different art forms through which the artist communicated a story in his work. One of the common narratives in Russell’s art is that of the relationship between Indigenous people of the Great Plains and the American bison. (Note: while bison is the scientific name, buffalo is the more familiar term used today.)   Charles M. Russell | Wounded (The Wounded Buffalo) | 1909 | Oil on canvas | 19.975 x 30.125 inches   What does that relationship look like today? A great example is taking place here in t ..read more

Every cowboy hat has a story to tell. When you walk through our galleries here at the Sid Richardson Museum, you’ll not have to journey far before you encounter an artwork featuring a figure in a Western-style hat. But not each hat is the same. Every cowboy hat carries the history of its wearer, whether that be Mexican vaquero hats, Charro hats, the hats of western performers or rodeo stars, and of course the working cowboy hats. So let’s take a journey through some highlights from our collection to explore the evolution and different iterations of the cowboy hat.   Frederic Remington ..read more

The impact of Charles Russell’s friendship with pioneer dude rancher Howard Eaton appears twice in our current exhibit, Charles M. Russell: Storyteller Across Media. The first occurrence is in Russell’s 1916 oil painting Man’s Weapons Are Useless When Nature Goes Armed. In the bottom left corner viewers will see an inscription to Eaton from his friend CMR.   Charles M. Russell | Man’s Weapons Are Useless When Nature Goes Armed (Weapons of the Weak; Two of a Kind Win) | 1916 | Oil on canvas | 30 x 48.125 inches   Detail of Man’s Weapons showing Russell’s signature and inscription t ..read more

What do we see when we picture the American West? Perhaps Native women, elderly Indigenous men, or Anglo cowboys. Commonly imagined through art and film, these have been the consistent images of the American West that are still accepted to this day and that, until recently, very few people have questioned. This imagined West was very real for generations of people and remains the way that, for many people, we picture this place. Another way the “Old West” is imagined and imaged is through erasure; a time and place that is supported by those we do not see. In a 1938 interview, Agnes Walker (bor ..read more

While Charles Russell led a successful artistic career, largely in part to the business savvy of his wife and manager Nancy Cooper Russell, not every creative output was intended for sale. His illustrated letters and even some significant paintings and sculptures were made specifically as gifts for the artist’s close friends. Some of these works were gifted to reciprocate the hospitality Charlie and Nancy received during their travels to promote his art. Who were these friends? A section of artworks featured in our current exhibit, Charles M. Russell: Storyteller Across Media, relate to the fr ..read more

Our new exhibit, Charles M. Russell: Storyteller Across Media, focuses on the artist’s talent and ability to tell stories through his art. He communicates his stories through paint, canvas, paper, bronze, and any other material he could find. In the case of one story featured in the exhibit, he retold it through a few different media and compositions. Near the entrance of the exhibition, visitors will encounter a grouping of works related to an event called counting coup. To count coup was a high honor among Plains Indians, and often consisted of touching the enemy with a club or whip without ..read more