2025 Coeur d’Alene Art Auction39 / 48 • View Catalog •
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VERSO
Label, C. M. Russell Museum, Great Falls, Montana
The Tenderfoot is included in the C. M. Russell Catalogue Raisonné as number CR.PC.421.
Russell historian Rick Stewart wrote, “Russell was a veteran of the open range cattle industry in Montana Territory, and he transferred his experiences into his art. One writer for Harper’s Weekly in 1886 reported that ‘cowboys as a class are brimful and running over with wit, merriment, and good humor;’ however, ‘their love of excitement and adventure sometimes gets the better of their judgment, and they carry their fun to excess.’ Very often, he further noted, an innocent bystander might be forced to suddenly dance a jig ‘to the music of six- shooters,’ as Russell has depicted in this spirited and wonderful painting. Russell, along with his cowboy cohorts, loved to initiate the naive newcomers they termed ‘tenderfoots’ into the wild ways of frontier life. In this painting, a cowhand who has had plenty of good cheer in the saloon at the rear has decided to enliven the day for an easterner in fancy riding dress. The contrast between the two is hilarious, even if the surprise and distress of the unfortunate tenderfoot is not. The whole scene is alive with interesting narrative details, from the array of characters in front of the saloon to the brightly-clad Indians behind the cowhand, all of whom are enjoying the show. Russell shows us the vibrant life of a typical Montana frontier town in its raucous heyday, probably with a degree of nostalgia on his part because he had been a part of it and it was already in the past.”
PROVENANCE
The artist
Gartner Chamberlin, Spokane, Washington
Private collection, by descent
Coeur d’Alene Art Auction, Reno, Nevada, 2016
Private collection, Wyoming
EXHIBITED
C. M. Russell Museum, Great Falls, Montana, n.d.
