Frederic Remington

Frederic Remington. , Frederic Remington created a mythical image of the American West that continues to inspire America today. This painter, sculptor, author and illustrators, who is so often identified with the American West, surprisingly spent most of his life in the East., He was born Frederic Sackrider Remington in Canton, New York. His parents later moved to Ogdensburg, New York where today the Frederic Remington Art Museum is located. He studied art at Yale University and the Art Students League and, as a young man, traveled West where he worked as a rancher, a saloonkeeper and a self-described "cow puncher." His work appeared in Collier's, Harper's Weekly and in William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal., In 1899, Remington and his wife Eva moved to a Gothic revival house in New Rochelle. Located at 301 Webster Avenue, the house was situated on a promontory known as "Lathers Hill." Remington called it "Endion," an Ojibwa word meaning "the place where I live." He would travel to the West to photograph Native Americans, cowboys and landscapes and then return to his New Rochelle studio to create his world-famous paintings and sculptures., Remington's dramatic images fired the American imagination, and his vision of the West was adopted by the nation. As the end of the 19th century brought the closing of the frontier, Remington immortalized the Western experience as one of independence, individualism, and stoic heroism. It was the optimistic vision that encouraged the settling of the West. He struck a mythical chord, defining our national character that still echoes today in popular culture. From the "Marlboro Man" in cigarette advertisements to the epic Westerns of John Ford, these images that we perceive as uniquely American reflect the enduring legacy of Frederic Remington., According to Theodore Roosevelt, whose book Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail Remington illustrated, "He has portrayed a most characteristic and yet vanishing type of American life."