2016 Coeur d’Alene Art Auction / Lot 108
Bucking Bronc is recorded in the C. M. Russell Catalogue Raisonné as reference number CR.NE.386.
Russell Historian Frederic Renner wrote, “Men who made a specialty of riding outlaw horses had a language all their own. Such cowboys were bronco busters, twisters, peelers, or bronc stompers, men who scorned to pull leather as their horse bucked, crawfished, came apart, jackknifed, pitched, rainbowed, sunfished, or tried to chin the moon.
“Russell never acquired a reputation as a bronco buster, but that didn’t stop him from admiring one. In the early days on the range half the horses in a cowboy’s string could be expected to act snakey when a stiff saddle blanket was thrown over them on a cold morning. This was all in the day’s work and usually both the man and the horse put on a good show. A horse that pitched unexpectedly when the cowboy was out on the range was a different matter. When that happened the cowboy really put on a ride, knowing that if he got thrown it meant a long walk back to camp, to say nothing of the jeers of his friends.”