Changing Outfits – Bronze Sculpture Recast

Description

This exquisite sculpture is reproduced in bronze and mounted on a wooden base and then hand-rubbed to bring out detail and highlights.

Recast from original piece by Charles M. Russell, 1951. Heavy solid sculpture with artist’s signature in the bronze. The Western Heritage Center has a Museum collection with a significant group of painting and sculptures by Charles Russell and Frederic Remington, and commissioned the Dave Grossman Design group to publish an edition of Russell’s sculptures in 1982 (engraved in bronze on one side). The company, located in St Louis, Missouri, began producing bronze sculpture collectibles in 1973. This is a masterpiece in American sculpture by a legendary artist of the Old West.

This 100% solid sculpture was created using the Lost Wax Casting Process and hand finished. This sculpture was cast from the original plaster in the Will Rogers museum. “Changing Outfits” was never offered in Russell’s lifetime.About the artist Charles M. Russell: In 1882 Charlie landed a job as a wrangler on a cattle drive. He wrangled for eleven years, and while he was not known for being a good roper or rider, Russell established a local reputation as the affable (some said bone lazy) cowboy who loved to draw and knew how to tell a great story. As a self-taught artist, his sketches were crude but reflected an observant eye, a feel for animal and human anatomy, a sense of humor and a flair for portraying action – all hallmarks of Russell’s mature art. Throughout his years on the range, he witnessed the changing of the West. He saw the bitter winter of 1886-87 end the cattleman’s dominion on the northern plains. The days of free grass and unfenced range were ending and, for Russell, the cowboy life was over by 1893. Charles Russell also known as C. M. Russell, Charlie Russell, and “Kid” Russell, was an artist of the Old American West. Russell created more than 2,000 paintings of cowboys, Indians, and landscapes set in the Western United States, in addition to Western Bronze Sculptures. Known as ‘the cowboy artist’, Russell was also a storyteller and author. The C. M. Russell Museum Complex located in Great Falls, Montana houses more than 2,000 Russell artworks, personal objects, and artifacts.

This historic and interesting statue by Charles Russell appears to be about “The Pony Express” system of U.S. mail delivery by continuous horse-and-rider relays between St. Joseph, Missouri, and Sacramento, California, and from Sacramento to San Francisco, California and by steamer (April 1860–October 1861). Although a financially disastrous brief enterprise, the Pony Express and its most famous riders, such as William (“Buffalo Bill”) Cody and Robert (“Pony Bob”) Haslam, captured the national imagination as one of the most daring and colourful episodes in the history of the American West.