Russell and Remington @ Calgary's Glenbow Museum

There is a museum in Calgary, Alberta, ‘Where the World Meets the West’. This is Glenbow Museum, which also houses an art gallery, a library, and an archive. It is one of the largest museums in Canada, but is most recognized for being a cultural institute that embraces the many interesting historical artworks, artifacts, and documents of the Canadian West. Their official website - http://www.glenbow.org/ – provides prospective visitors with a myriad of information that explain their displays and program objectives.

Their mandate is “to promote and encourage the acquisition and diffusion of knowledge of the human race, its art, its history and the nature of the world in which it lives, in the manner that best serves the educational and cultural needs of Albertans.” Glenbow prides itself on their ability to preserve western culture as well as maintain standards of museum practice that both attract and retain “the best citizens for Calgary.” Being located in the heart of southern Alberta provides Glenbow with an audience that can both learn and contribute to their success.

In 2004, an exhibit was put together that would focus heavily on the museums mandate, goals, and abilities as mentioned above. Creatively and suitably titled ‘Capturing Western Legends’, it was a demonstration of the works created in the early 20th century by American artists Charles Russell and Frederick Remington. Their drawings, paintings, and sculptures stand as a marker for the fantastic Hollywood stories and legends based on the dominate frontier prairies of the past. These works have been so influential that today their iconic images hold strong cultural value when describing the Canadian West.

The first artist, Frederic Sackrider Remington (1861-1909), was born in New York and spent much of his life in Eastern America. In the 1880s he travelled west to Montana where he first experienced the thrill and beauty of the western frontier. Here he came to grip with his artistic talents and gained much success exploring and depicting the most profitable aspects of cowboy and Native American life. Employed by two growing American magazine publishers, Harpers Weekly and Colliers, he profited greatly enough to focus solely on painting and sculpture for income. Many of the works on display at the Glenbow museum were not created until after 1887 when Remington first ventured north into the Canada Rockies. These centre upon and depict the power and pride of the Canadian Mounties, the sensation of the Hudson’s bay company fur trade, and Native Canadian life as understood by citizens of the time period.

The Second Artist, Charles Marion Russell (1864-1926), was also American, born in Missouri, though settled within frontier lands of Montana at the age of sixteen. He first found a living as a rancher, only making sketches of the west in his spare time. He traveled to the Canadian west shortly after Remington had, in 1888. Here he spent much of his time with Native Canadians, learning of their lifestyle and creating numerous art works to record and explain his experiences. Russell gained a loyal audience within the members of the prairie west and was invited to exhibit his talent at Calgary’s first ‘Stampede’ in 1912.

These two famed artists, almost heroic idols for some, are popular for their representation of the Frontier. The significance of the ‘Frontier’ at the time of Russell and Remington is that it taught and enforced numerous morals and values that came to be glorified in the wild and lusty characters of Hollywood Western films. The harsh conditions and vast expanse of the Western region had turned the ‘boys’ into ‘men’ and the ‘men’ into leaders for centuries. As the 20th century and industrialism brought the Frontier to a close, the impact of art works from the men like Russell and Remington grew stronger as outlets to remind and teach new generations of their cultural past.
Capturing Western Legends arrival at Glenbow museum allowed them to present to the people of the 21st century, the culture their ancestors had thrived upon. Though the two chosen artists for this exhibit are from the industrial urban east of America, one should not conclude that there weren’t any works created from within the Canadian West. The fact that these men, born in the lands they were, had become so fascinated and endeared to the western lands, can only enforce the value and attraction that these mystic ‘legendary’ lands contained.

Below are two examples of the type of legends that came to life through the drawings, paintings and sculptures of Charles Russell and Frederic Remington. Though these myths are today mere pieces of the past, they still serve as major cultural conduits of Prairie and Canadian society as a whole, however highly elaborated and romanticised as they are.

The Blackfoot People

Remington captured portraits of the Blackfoot people of Western Canada, their artifacts and way of life. He sketched only what he saw, and did not try to embellish. He did this with respect and permission from Crowfoot, the Blackfoot head chief. In his art, Remington decidedly captured the Blackfoot people as they were in the past, he “did not record the transformation that was being wrought on these people. He chose instead to portray them as warriors and nomadic hunters. Harper's Weekly referred to the Blackfoot as "the Apaches of the past," remarking on their legendary bellicosity, their "warlike character," and their "independent manner." (7) Remington's attraction to the Blackfoot was dependent in large pan on the warrior ethos that permeated their culture and parallelled his own penchant for military activity. It was these qualities of the Blackfoot people that most intrigued him, not the painful realities of the reservation acculturation process that were everywhere in evidence”.

Remington couldn’t have been more wrong...

According to Glenbow Museum’s permanent Gallery on the Niitsitapiisini or Blackfoot people, they are an independent spiritual people and have been for thousands of years, until the Europeans came and began encroaching upon their culture.

The Blackfoot were a resourceful people who lived together off of the land stretching from “Elk River, now called the North Saskatchewan River, south to Yellowstone River. We lived along the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains and eastward beyond the Great Sand Hills in what is now called Saskatchewan. It is an immense land with some of the richest natural resources in the world”. The gathered herbs, plants and berries for survival and hunted as well. They were respectful of the land and its resources and were careful not to deplete it always moving…but with purpose.

Blackfoot’s Beliefs:
“In order to understand us you need to understand the world around us."
Ihtsipaitapiyopa is the name we give to the Essence of All Life. This is Creator, the Source of All Life. Ihtsipaitapiyopa made all living things equal. Human beings were not given the right to rule over or exploit the rest of nature. We recognize plants, animals, and rocks as other living beings who are different from us but also our equals.Each plant or animal has unique gifts and abilities that they share with humans. Some plants can cure our diseases, others give us important nutrients. Buffalo are strong animals that once provided much of what we needed for survival. Birds are swift flyers who helped warriors to be stealthy and quick.These animals visited us in human form and taught us how to call on them for their special gifts. This is how we became so closely connected to the beings with whom we share the earth.

We use the word Niitsitapi to refer to ourselves and all other First Nations people. This means “Real People.”

Iinii (buffalo) are strong, fearless animals who knew how to survive on the plains.

Makoyi (the wolves) taught us that animals with hooves and horns would provide us with food. Elk also gave us their hides to made clothing.

Aimmoniisi (otter), Ksisststaki (beavers) and other water beings have special powers they sometimes share with human beings.

Naato'si (the Sun) gives us our life on earth. He is a very important Above Person.

Ksiistsikomm (Thunder) is one of the most powerful beings. He also brings us the summer rains that we need for good grazing.”

Traditional Stories of the Blackfoot—the real legends of the Canadian Frontier
Has Glenbow Museum given a fair representation of Western Legends?
Yes, I believe they have done justice to the art and lives of both Russell and Remington. Their work has been untouched, and their artistic objectives have not been compromised by reality.

On the other hand, a more accurate depiction of the Blackfoot people has been given as well. There is a permanent exhibit at the museum dedicated to the real lives of the Blackfoot people. It is a great resource for teachers, students, and those interested in part of Canada’s past.

I believe that Glenbow Museum has taken appropriate measures since the 1988 Olympics to embrace bi-culturalism, at least where the Niitsitapiisini people are concerned.

The Cowboys of the Prairies

Do the people of Western Canada actually wish to be seen as ranchers? This is what made the west famous, farmers growing wheat and Ranchers herding cattle. There is no denying that this is a big part of prairie history and even today it is still remembered and cherished as the prairie way of life. We have tried to deny this before but perhaps it is inevitable that the prairies are famous and proud to be cowboys. The Calgary stampede continues to be a big part of their culture and everyone dresses up like cowboys and girls and watches races and wrangle bulls.

The artwork of Charles M. Russell was proudly exhibited in Alberta’s biggest museum, proving that perhaps they are proud that this type of characteristic cowboy artwork is their culture. Charles Marion Russell was born in Missouri in 1864, since he was a young boy he had always been captivated by Indians and cowboys, constantly reading books about them. Through his life he painted over 2000 painting of cowboys, Indians, and landscapes set in Western United States. In 2004 the Glenbow museum hosted an exhibit entitled “Capturing Western Legends: Russell and Remington’s Canadian Frontier”. It boasted that both artists created the iconic images of the West as they visited the northwest frontier at the turn of the century. However, at the turn of the century when times were starting to change and Canada was becoming its own nation was the acceptance and perseverance of his art more harm to our society and culture than a help? His works of art are stereotypical and were action shots of cowboys fighting Indians, Indians holding meetings, and wildlife and nature. However, they were beautiful paintings and perhaps a way to look at the past and see the Wild West’s roots. The fact that his art was celebrated almost 100 years after, shows that we still see the west as a wild free range on which cowboys still reign and Indians are not tame, but inferior. The Glenbow Museum is the largest in Alberta and houses a lot of famous paintings especially trying to focus on preserving Western culture.

Seven years previous to this exhibit the museum also hosted an exhibit showing the “Canadian Cowboy”, it focused on three aspects of cowboys; the working cowboy, the performing cowboy and the imaginary cowboy. By tying these three types of cowboys together it symbolizes that those who are ranch hands on a farm in Alberta are no different than those who perform at the Calgary stampede or the image that we have of John Wayne and his many cowboy movies as an imagined cowboy/hero who always saves the day. Visitors to this exhibit were even invited to dress up in cowboy clothing and have their picture taken with a cowboy.
Russell was definitely the kind of man who knew a real cowboy and tried to make his pictures depict that as much as he could. It doesn’t appear that he was as interested in the lighter side of cowboy ranching but took it seriously and seen them as real working men. He was very interested in them and what they did as is seen in Cowboys, Ranchers, and the Cattle Business:

But the question is, was the museums idea to show him as a painter who knew what he was painting and to the best of his ability depicting the real life cowboys? If so, why was this exhibit held just a few years after the other one that showed the more Hollywood side of Cowboys?

Geminis Saskatchewan Spoof

DO NOT call The Prairies flat!