1864 -1926 · Painter from Montana and the American West

Cowboys, bison, Plains peoples and frontier stories give Charles Marion Russell a central place in the visual imagination of the American West.

Born in Saint-Louis in 1864, Charles Marion Russell left for Montana at sixteen with the dream of becoming a cowboy. He worked on ranches, accompanied hunters and directly observed horses, bison, landscapes and indigenous communities in the Northern Plains. Self-taught, he drew on all available media and also modeled small wax scenes. From the 1890s, his marriage to Nancy Cooper Russell promoted a national career, exhibitions and dissemination through illustration. From the 1890s, his marriage to Nancy Cooper Russell promoted a national career, exhibitions and dissemination through illustration. From the 1890s, his marriage to Nancy Cooper Russell promoted a national career, exhibitions and dissemination through illustration. Based in Great Falls, he continued until his death a work of more than four thousand paintings, watercolors, sculptures and illustrated letters, both chronicle of the world he knew and meditation on his disappearance. The "Charles Marion Russell" selection notably compares Entry Without Knocking and The Buffalo Hunt. His reading favors composition.

Russell tells the West from the inside: the horse's movement, climate and rider's gesture are based on lived experience.