Charles Russell Museum Great Falls

The Russell: The Sale To Benefit The Cm Russell Museum

In 1969, the Great Falls Ad Club and local television personality Norma Ashby organized the first C.M. Russell Art Auction. A portion of the proceeds from the auction of original 19th and 20th century Western art benefited the C.M. Russell Museum. Over time, this evolved into a week-long series of Western art auctions, gallery showings, public exhibitions, and more known as Western Art Week. Western Art Week is now the largest original Western art auction and exhibition in the United States. Between 1969 and 2003, the auction grossed $16 million and gave $3,771,088 to the museum.

In 2009, the museum and the Ad Club parted ways, with the museum organizing a new auction named “The Russell: The Sale to Benefit the C.M. Russell Museum.” The Ad Club continued the original C.M. Russell Art Auction in 2010, but the shuttered the auction. “The Russell” held its first auction in 2010, and had net proceeds of $605,473. The second auction was held in March 2011.

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Various elements make up the C.M. Russell Museum. There are permanent exhibits devoted to the American bison or buffalo, and to the role of firearms in the American West. There are exhibits of Western art by persons other than Charlie Russell. Outside the museum, there is a sculpture garden, always free and open to the public, featuring six major wildlife bronzes by established artists, as well as a large sculpture of Russell himself.

A focal point for Russell fans is Charles M. Russell: The Legacy, a permanent exhibit displaying the museums collection of Russells oils, watercolors, bronzes, clay models, illustrated letters, pen-and-ink drawings and Russell possessions such as his saddle, cowboy hat and the woven waist sash he was fond of wearing.

Here, visitors will see on the walls in front of them famous paintings they previously have been able to enjoy only in the pages of books.

Northern plains tribes are represented in The Fireboat, in which mounted warriors see a steamboat for the first time, and The Waterhole, which details members of a migrating band arriving at water.

Mad Cow illustrates the hazards faced by working cowboys and Gun Fighters shows that whiskey, gambling and loaded guns could be a lethal combination.

Mostly self-taught, Russell told stories with his art, tales based on things he experienced and witnessed and sketches he made in cow camps, but also on yarns he heard, historic accounts and his own imagination.

A good match

Founding Of The Museum

Emma Josephine Trigg was the daughter of Albert Trigg, owner of the Brunswick Saloon in Great Falls. She became an art teacher in the Great Falls Public Schools, and in 1911 became the children’s librarian at the Great Falls Public Library. Trigg later was briefly married to W. T. Ridgley, a local printer who published books of Russell’s works as well as an autobiography of a local civic leader which Russell illustrated. The Brunswick Saloon was one of Russell’s favorite bars, and Albert Trigg allowed Russell to use one of his back rooms as an art studio. In 1900, Russell built a two-story clapboard house near the Trigg home, and in 1903 built a log cabin studio on an empty lot between the two houses. Russell became acquainted with “Miss Josephine” when Trigg was a teenager, and they remained friends for the rest of Russell’s life. Trigg often accompanied Russell and his wife on vacations, and she provided calligraphy for many of his letters, postcards, and illustrated items .

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Selected Annotated Bibliography On Charles Marion Russell

Dear, Elizabeth. The Grand Expedition of Lewis and Clark as seen by C.M. Russell. Great Falls: C.M. Russell Museum, 2000.

Dippie, Brian W. Looking at Russell. Fort Worth: Amon Carter Museum, 1987. The Anne Burnett Tandy Lectures in American Civilization. Number Seven. Based on a series of lectures Dippie presented. Remains a valuable contribution to the Russell literature, because it analyzes Russell as an artist and identifies artistic influences on his development.

Dippie, Brian W., ed. Charles M. Russell, Word Painter: Letters 1887 1926. Fort Worth: Amon Carter Museum, 1993. The most complete compilation of Russells illustrated letters with commentary on the recipients and context.

Dippie, Brian W., ed. Charlie Russell Roundup: Essays on Americas Favorite Cowboy Artist. Helena: Montana Historical Society, 1999. Collection of 38 essays on Russell, from early press accounts to contemporary evaluations brings together significant documents.

Hassrick, Peter H. Charles M. Russell. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1989. Important analysis of Russell as an artist including stylistic development and major accomplishments.

Hassrick, Peter H. Remington, Russell and the Language of Western Art. Washington, D.C.: Trust for Museum Exhibitions, 2000. Catalogue of loan exhibition that brings together paintings and sculpture by Frederic Remington and Charles M. Russell. Excellent comparison of the two most important artists of the West.

Iconic Charles M Russell Painting Is The Prize In A New Fundraising Effort In Great Falls

Charles M. Russell , The Hold Up, 1899, oil on canvas, 30 x 48 in. Petrie Collection, Denver, Colorado.

One of the most important and famous paintings by Charles M. Russell is at the center of a new fundraising campaign at the C.M. Russell Museum in Great Falls, Montana. The painting, the 1899 masterwork The Hold Up, was unveiled as the key prize in a new initiative within the Art and Soul Campaign, a $25 million campaign to grow the museums endowment.

The new initiatives push is to raise an additional $2.5 million in pledges. If the goal is met, Tom Petrie, the campaigns co-chair and respected Russell collector, will hand over ownership interest in The Hold Up to the museum.

The Hold Up, portraying a real-life 1870s South Hills stagecoach stickup by infamous outlaw Big Nose George Parrot and gang, is the most famous piece of the Mint Collectiona vast compilation of Russell oils, watercolors, illustrated letters, and wax models which adorned the artists favorite establishment, the Mint saloon in Great Falls, according to the museum. The collection was sold in 1952 to Amon Carter, after the passing of the saloon owner and an unsuccessful attempt to raise funds to keep the collection in Montana. Decades later when the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, began selling a handful of Russell pieces, Petrie purchased the The Hold Up.

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The Russell Sealed Bid And Charlie’s Miniature Roundup

Experience a total immersion in the art and stories of Americas cowboy artist, Charles M. Russell. Permanent exhibitions at the museum include The Bison: American Icon, Heart of Plains Indian Culture and the Charles M. Russell: The Legacy of Americas Cowboy Artist. The complex includes the Russells original house and studio, archives and research library, and an outdoor sculpture garden, as well as rotating exhibitions featuring historic and contemporary pieces of Western art.

The Russell is the premiere fundraising event for the C.M. Russell Museum attracting artists, collectors, and patrons from around the country for events in both March and August.

For more information, contact Christina Horton at 406-727-1939 or .

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Russell House And Studio

In 1896, Charlie Russell and his new wife, Nancy, were living in a shack in back of a house in Cascade, Montana. In 1897, the couple moved into a rented four-room home on Seventh Avenue North in Great Falls. In December 1899, Russell’s father Charles Silas Russell gave the couple $500. The estate of Mary Mead Russell, Russell’s mother who died in 1895, was finally probated shortly thereafter, and in the spring of 1900 the Russells began building a new home on the corner of 13th Street and 4th Avenue North. A friend and neighbor, George Calvert, was the likely architect and constructed the house for them. The two-story wood-frame building had clapboard siding, gable roof, and wooden shake roofing shingles. It had little exterior ornamentation. The house faced south, with gable fronted dormers on the east and west and another project slightly from the southwest corner of the house. The front door led to a small front hall, and a parlor ran across the south face of the home. Also on the first floor were dining room, bathroom, kitchen, and a small maid’s room off the kitchen. Some of the furniture on first floor were built into the home. A steep stairway led to three small bedrooms and a small bathroom on the second floor. The interior was paneled in dark wood. A small exterior porch ran around the southeast corner of the home. The architectural style was in the Arts and Crafts genre. The Russells occupied the home in the summer of 1900.

Montana Museum Is Dedicated To The Life And Art Of Charles Marion Russell

He said, ‘Kid Russell, I got a job for you.

‘You’re in charge of sunsets up in old Montana,

‘Because I can’t paint them quite as good as you.’

GREAT FALLS, Mont. Canadian singer-songwriter Ian Tyson’s “The Gift” pays tribute to Charles Marion “Charlie” Russell , considered by legions of folks, ranging from cowboys to art connoisseurs, to be the painter and sculptor who best depicted life as it was in the northern plains and mountains in the 1870s and 1880s.

He was good at sunsets up in old Montana, but he also memorialized with exacting detail the landscape, wildlife, Native American way of life, cattle-raising culture, sudden action and explosive violence of the Western frontier.

Russell was born in St. Louis, Missouri, but moved to Montana when he was 16 and lived their for the remainder of his days. He was an apprentice to a hunter and trader for two years and worked 11 years as a cowboy and horse wrangler, getting a taste of the life he would recreate in oils, watercolors and bronze when he became a full-time artist in 1893.

Russell produced more than 4,000 pieces of art, and one of the larger collections of his works is housed at the C.M. Russell Museum in Great Falls.

Focal point

Here, visitors will see on the walls in front of them famous paintings they previously have been able to enjoy only in the pages of books.

A good match

C.M. Russell Museum

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You Can Also See The Art Here:

• Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, TX
• Buffalo Bill Center of the West, Cody, WY
• Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO
• Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, Indianapolis, IN
• Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, OK
• Montana Historical Society, Helena, MT
• National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, Oklahoma City, OK
• National Museum of Wildlife Art, Jackson, WY
• Rockwell Museum, Corning, NY

C M Russell Museum Complex

C. M. Russell Museum Complex is an art museum located in the city of Great Falls, Montana, in the United States. The museum’s primary function is to display the artwork of Great Falls “cowboy artist” Charles Marion Russell, for whom the museum is named. The museum also displays illustrated letters by Russell, work materials used by him, and other items which help visitors understand the life and working habits of Russell. In addition, the museum displays original 19th, 20th, and 21st century art depicting the American Old West and the flora, fauna, and landscapes of the American West. In 2009, the Wall Street Journal called the institution “one of America’s premier Western art museums.” Located on the museum property is Russell’s log cabin studio, as well as his two-story wood-frame home. The house and log cabin studio were designated a National Historic Landmark in 1965, and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1966. In 1976, the listing boundaries were amended to account for moving the house.

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Charles M Russell Catalogue Raisonn

In partnership with the C.M. Russell Museum in Great Falls, Montana, the Russell Center has compiled a catalogue raisonné on artist Charles M. Russell. This project, which continues to be updated on a regular basis, includes information on all of the artist’s known oil and watercolor paintings, illustrated letters, pen and ink drawings and original models.