Charles M. Russell: The Women in His Life and Art

The American West is traditionally thought of as a man’s world, a view that has been maintained and glorified by generations of novelists and artists who have staked their careers on interpreting and visualizing the west. While Charles M. Russell is recognized as one of the premier interpreters of that masculine domain, it is one that has overshadowed the artist’s portrayals of women in the west, a subject which spans the entirety of his career. Russell depicted a surprisingly large number of women fulfilling an expansive range of western roles. Some of these roles—white women as pioneer wives, captives of hostile Indians, or prostitutes; Indian women as exotic sex objects and domestic drudges—conform to the pervasive stereotypes and artistic trends of his time. However, Russell’s experience and observation in the late nineteenth-century west encouraged more nuanced and action-oriented depictions of women than did many of his contemporaries, and he often incorporated female subjects in his ongoing commentary on progress and change in the West and its effects on western people. [...]

Charles M. Russell: The Women in His Life and Art features 60 works in oil, watercolor, pen and ink and bronze by Charles Russell that span the length of his career from 1890 to 1926, and several additional works by notable artists who influenced his depictions of women. We have enlisted a range of voices to bring Russell and the Ladies into reality. The exhibition is co-curated by Joan Carpenter Troccoli, Curator Emeritus at the Denver Museum of Art, and Emily Crawford Wilson, Curator of the C.M. Russell Museum. An accompanying catalogue to the exhibition will feature three new essays—by Troccoli, Wilson, and Jennifer Bottomly O’looney of the Montana Historical Society—with a foreword by Brian Dippie, Emeritus Professor at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, and commentary from Nancy Russell’s unpublished biography selected and annotated by Thomas Petrie, Board Chair of the C.M. Russell Museum.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website