2021 Coeur d’Alene Art Auction / Lot 162
VERSO
Label, Whitney Gallery of Western Art, Cody, Wyoming
According to Western art historian Harold McCracken, “Wandering nomads though most of the Plains Indians had been for centuries, the tribes usually had their central villages to which they could return with a homelike feeling; and each had a more or less well defined area that was considered its own territorial domain. The location of these shifted from time to time and the size varied in accordance to the strength and aggressiveness of their warriors, as compared to those of their neighbors. Sometimes the tribes were pushed on by encroachment of stronger enemies and sometimes they moved on to find new hunting grounds or just because of their wandering instinct.
“The borderland of the other tribe marked the edge of their hunting ground. These boundaries were generally well-defined geographical landmarks such as a river or ridge of hills. Out on the open prairie they sometimes erected markers of sun-bleached buffalo skulls or piles of rock. These were a warning and challenge to their enemies and were generally respected by the other tribes. To trespass was considered justification for warfare. When the white man came, and trespassed, he was no exception.”
PROVENANCE
Pete and Janet Taggares, Washington
EXHIBITED
Whitney Gallery of Western Art, Cody, Wyoming, 1974
LITERATURE
Harold McCracken, Frederic Remington: Artist of the Old West, J. B. Lippincott, 1947, plate 36, illustrated
Harold McCracken, The Frederic Remington Book, Doubleday, 1966, p. 151, illustrated
Robert Howard Russell, Drawings by Frederic Remington, R. H. Russell, 1897, illustrated