Page 110 - TheRussellCatalogue2016

142CHARLES M. RUSSELL (1864–1926) Blood Chief, 1899[Indian on Horseback, e Blackfoot War Chief] watercolor, graphite11 3⁄8 x 17 3⁄8 inchesSigned Ll: CM Russell/1899 (skull)Blood Chief is a completely nished work, painted at the height of Charles Russell’s most productive period as a watercolorist. e painting portrays a Blood chief wearing a feathered war bonnet, sitting astride his horse on a small knoll where the Great Plains slope away from the Northern Rocky Mountains to the east. e mountains provide a backdrop for the gures. e chief holds a feathered lance and painted shield in his left hand and a rawhide quirt in his right. He has a bow and quiver of arrows strapped on his back and a red, blue, and yellow blanket across the horse’s withers.In Romance Maker: e Watercolors of Charles M. Russell, Rick Stewart explained that watercolors dominated Russell’s early work because he was more naturally gifted in the medium and the materials he needed were easier to procure and use. Stewart wrote, “By the end of the 1890s, living and working in north-central Montana since the age of sixteen, Russell reached a pinnacle of achievement in the watercolor medium that few American artists of his time—many of them with years of formal training—ever managed to attain.”1Painted during the heyday of Russell’s watercolor production from 1896 to 1909, Blood Chief (1899) is one of the 230 nished watercolors the artist completed during this mature period. Native American subjects dominated Russell’s output at the time, numbering 155 works, about 67 percent of his total watercolor production. e painting re ects the artist’s concern for historical details and incorporates many of the Indian artifacts that he kept and used as props in his Great Falls studio. Moreover, Russell was very knowledgeable about his Indian subjects, having lived the life he painted.As Russell historian Brian W. Dippie has noted, Russell’s inspiration for numerous paintings came from observations he made and stories he heard while visiting the Blood band of the Blackfoot Confederacy while he idled away the summer of 1888 in Alberta, Canada. Too late for the spring roundup, too early for the fall roundup, Russell did just ne loa ng with a friend on a ranch near High River, shing and visiting and enjoying himself. But it was not really an idle summer. e ranch was located between the Blackfoot reserve to the north and the Piegan and Blood reserves to the south,and the visiting had a purpose. Russell spent hours listening to old warriors from the three Blackfoot tribes recount their youthful exploits. ey told of daring deeds and honors won back when the land still belonged to God—and the Blackfoot, Sioux, and Crow. Russell’s imagination was set ablaze by what he heard.As he started work on this watercolor painting, Russell sketched the outlines of his composition in pencil directly on the paper. When studied closely, the gure discloses the sketching under the layers of wash. Compared to his early work where the preliminary under drawings appear fussy and labored, this painting demonstrates a more mature technique. As is typical in Russell’s work, the layers of watercolor and individual strokes of color in the landscape around the gure are notable for their freedom of execution and lightness of touch. e foreground displays varied color and brushstrokes in marked contrast to the gure itself, which Russell rendered with careful detail. In this painting, Russell lowered the horizon around the central gure to increase a sense of space and to give his gure a greater feeling of monumentality.$125,000–200,000Recorded in Charles M. Russell: A Catalogue Raisonnė: CR.UNL.6321Rick Stewart, Romance Maker: e Watercolors of Charles M. Russell (Fort Worth, TX: Amon Carter Museum of American Art, 2011), 12