Introducing 2008 Montana Cowboy Hall of Fame Legacy Award Inductee…
Charles Marion Russell (1864-1926)
Born in St. Louis, Missouri on March 19, 1864, Charles M. Russell came to Montana Territory early in 1880, just after his sixteenth birthday. Except for brief visits, he never went home again, for he had found his home on the broad prairies and among the pastel buttes of Montana. At first Russell worked as a horse wrangler, hung the pictures he created on bunkhouse walls, and fashioned models of animals from a ball of wax he kept in his pocket. He lived among his friends, both cowboys and Indians, and had few ambitions to become anything more than a cowboy who paid for drinks for his many friends by selling the occasional piece of art.
All that was changed in 1896, when the 32-year-old cowboy artist married a girl named Nancy Cooper. She became his business manager and is credited with not only encouraging him as a serious artist, but also with convincing the art world of his genius. She is also credited with "spoiling the fun" when she kept Charlie at his easel and discouraged his old friends from too much visiting. But the truth is that this ambitious little lady remade her modest husband into a genius, which is now recognized throughout the world, even by those who have never seen the West as he saw it. Russell had the ability to capture the thrill, humor, and sometimes the sadness of an era that was rapidly passing away. Much of Russell's genius, indeed, had to do with the fact that he knew the frontier was fast disappearing and he used his artistic gifts to preserve it.
Charles M. Russell was at the height of his powers in 1925 when his health began to fail. He went to Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota and underwent a goiter operation that did not stop his decline in health. He finally died of heart failure at his beloved home in Great Falls, Montana on October 24, 1926. Through his art the cowboy left behind an invaluable record of the West that was.
Reports say that people from all walks of life, including his old cowboy and Indian friends, wept as the horse-drawn hearse carrying Charles M. Russell passed down the street.
