The Cowboy Artist
Over on our podcast, the American Art Collective, co-host Maggie Cibik and I have started referring to Charles M. Russell as a “friend of the podcast,” the way a host would refer to a frequent guest or collaborator. Of course, Russell died 98 years ago, so he’s going to be an impossible guest to book.
This all started as a joke. Every month Maggie interviews me—as well as Sarah Gianelli, who discusses the most recent issue of our sister publication,
American Art Collector—to find out what’s coming up in the next issue of the magazine. We call these episodes First Looks, and they provide listeners a sneak peek of all the articles and features we have lined up for the magazine. Each episode, month after month, was filled with small discussions about Russell: Museum exhibitions featuring his works. Events named in his honor. Artists who were inspired by his paintings and bronzes. Paintings of his that were available at auctions. Sometimes, artists would just casually hold him up as a totem to Western art’s past while discussing aspects of the art world today. “…Like Russell and Remington,” they would say, which was shorthand for the old guard, the masters. As his name came up over and over again, we started reserving a seat for Russell in the studio. Then came his informal title, “Friend of the Podcast.”
What’s wonderful about art—art of any kind: paintings, film, opera, dance, literature—is that, when preserved properly, it lives longer than its creators. Charlie Russell died in 1926, and yet he’s still very much alive and in dialogue with
Western artists and collectors today. And there are still mysteries to be solved, details to unearth and theories that can be fleshed out. One person who is doing some of that footwork on Russell is one of his most respected collectors, Thomas Petrie, who has made huge steps to preserve Russell’s history, add context to his career and artwork, and to examine some of the finer points of his life. We’ve run articles by Tom (and his pal, Russell scholar
Byron B. Price) in many previous issues, and each article is always full of tremendous insight and history. He returns to our pages this month as he talks about Russell’s painting
The War Party. It’s a fascinating piece that goes through some interesting periods of Russell’s career. It’s also the warm-up article for our March issue, which will contain our coverage of The Russell at the C.M. Russell Museum during Russell Week in Great Falls. It’s a trifecta—the Russell at the Russell during the Russell.
I wanted to bring up Russell here because Tom’s article is really spectacular, and also as a way of acknowledging one of our special sections this month, the Contemporary West. We take great pride in our coverage of both the traditional side, which gave us Charlie Russell, but also the contemporary side of Western art that is being championed by some of the top artists working today. Western Art Collector is about both sides, and everything in between.