Charles Marion Russell

The Cowboy Artist

The Truce 1907 C.M. Russell

David Mihalic, former Superintendent of both Glacier and Yosemite National Parks and an artist himself, said of Glacier, “It’s a magical landscape that causes creative juices to flow.”* This creativity can be seen through the centuries in the arts and crafts of the Blackfeet Indians, who named this place Mistakis, the Backbone of the World to the paintings of contemporary Artists-in-Residence, chosen by the National Park Service. But perhaps the name most known as the painter of Glacier is Charles M. Russell.

Born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1864, Charles Marion Russell had moved to Montana by the age of sixteen to work on a sheep ranch. It is said that while he was working there during the severe winter of 1886-87, Russell did a small watercolor painting of a steer being watched by wolves. The ranch foreman sent the sketch to the ranch owner in response to his query about how the herd had fared that winter. The owner …