Charles Marion Russell was a painter, illustrator, sculptor, and storyteller who specialized in scenes of the Old West. Russell gained firsthand knowledge of western life in Montana, where he spent eleven years working various ranching jobs and sketching in his free time. As his reputation grew, he and his wife, Nancy, began making regular trips to New York, where he joined a community of experienced illustrators and gained national recognition. That broader exposure came at a time of considerable interest in the West, and Russell’s work garnered acclaim for their narrative subject matter, unique style, and dynamic action. Over his lifetime, he completed more than 4,000 works in paint, bronze, ink, and wax. In a letter to his friend Ralph S. Kendall in 1919, Russell wrote, “between the pen and the brush there is little [difference], but I believe the man that makes word pictures is the greater.”
