Page 156 - 2020 Russell Catalogue

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CHARLES M. RUSSELL (1864–1926) Meat for the Camp, c. 1894
[Return from the Hunt]
watercolor
18 1⁄2 x 33 1⁄2 inches
Inscription: L1: CM Russell/(skull)
$200,000–300,000
Recorded in Charles M. Russell: A Catalogue Raisonné: CR.NE.415
In his book Charles M. Russell, Watercolors 1887–1926, Rick Stewart examines the role of certain colors and
watercolor painting techniques in creating Meat for the Camp and discusses the piece as follows:
We know by looking at the watercolors and a surviving letter from the period that Russell used such colors as colbalt blue, “van dike” [Van Dyke] brown, yellow “oker” [ochre], “napels” [Naples] yellow, light red, Chinese white, and “ivery” [Ivory] black. Some of these colors can be seen in a typical watercolor of the period, Return from the Hunt, that depicts some Blackfeet returning to their camp with some freshly killed antelope. The work is fairly large in size, executed on a semirough watercolor paper; although it shows plenty of heavy pencil underdrawing, it reveals as well that Russell’s overall handling of colors and washes has become remarkably free and assured.1
In Return from the Hunt, Russell shows real understanding of the effects of color washes laid down freely but with the assurance to reflect light and reveal form, as in the horse, colt, and body of the antelope on the left. The transparent washes in the foreground are noticeably free and expressive; the individual clumps of sage and grasses are also indicated in this manner, without much overlay of additional strokes or washes to achieve greater complexity. In some places one can see where Russell dragged a brush with minimal
color and very little water across the rough surface of the paper, leaving behind tiny white highlights where the color did not penetrate—a technique known as dry brush. . . . the manner in which Russell applied the strokes in watercolors such as Return from the Hunt begins to reveal an instinctive understanding on how brushes of every type are used to achieve certain effects. In addition to his dry-brush technique to achieve only scattered touches of color on the paper’s surface, Russell has also begun to learn how to manipulate areas of color by rewetting and blotting them as seen in the middle ground of Return from the Hunt.2
PROVENANCE
• Private collection, Montana
1 2
Rick Stewart, Charles M. Russell, Watercolors 1887–1926 (Fort Worth, TX: Amon Carter Museum, 2015), 71. Ibid, 73.