68046: Frederic Remington (American, 1861-1909) The Bro

Frederic Remington (American, 1861-1909) The Bronco Buster, conceived 1908, cast 1910 Bronze with greenish-brown patina 32-7/8 inches (83.5 cm) high Ed. 12/19 Inscribed on base: Frederic Remington / Copyright by / Frederic Remington 1895 Stamped 'Roman Bronze Works / NY / Cire Perdue Cast' and '12' on base PROPERTY FROM THE PERSONAL COLLECTION OF MORT KUNSTLER PROVENANCE: Sotheby's, New York, December 3, 1998, lot 201; Acquired by the present owner from the above. EXHIBITED: The Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge, Massachusetts, "Mort Künstler: The Art of Adventure," November 15, 2014-March 8, 2015; Heckscher Museum of Art, Huntington, New York, "Norman Rockwell and Friends: American Illustrations from the Mort Künstler Collection," December 10, 2016-March 5, 2017. LITERATURE: B. Wear, The Bronze World of Frederick Remington, Tulsa, Oklahoma, 1966, pp. 94-95, another example illustrated; M.E. Shapiro, Cast and Recast: The Sculpture of Frederic Remington, Washington, D.C., 1981, pp. 63-69, figs. 45-54, 91, other examples illustrated; M.D. Greenbaum, Icons of the West: Frederic Remington's Sculpture, Ogdensburg, New York, 1996, pp. 51-64, 184, other examples illustrated. Frederic Remington's The Bronco Buster is perhaps the quintessential image of American Western Art. This work represents Remington's first venture into sculpture, having already established himself as a celebrated easel painter. While Remington was not the first artist to depict this classic struggle between rider and horse, he may well have been the most successful in terms of capturing the movement, drama, and pure energy of the scuffle. By the time he tried his hand at sculpting and produced The Bronco Buster in 1895, Remington had already gained national prominence as an illustrator and critical acclaim as a painter. Remarkably, he had no prior training or experience in sculpting when he started work on what came to be his signature piece of art. He was delighted with the results of his first sculpting effort, writing to his friend, the writer Owen Wister, that "my oils will all get old...my watercolors will fade, but I am to endure in bronze". Shortly before Remington died in 1909, the sculptor made a large scale plaster model of his popular bronze, a 23 ½ inches high work that had been cast nearly three hundred times since its inception in 1895. In a letter to Riccardo Bertelli, owner and operator of the Roman Bronze Works, Remington stated "You ought to see the 1 ½ [scale] Bronco Buster. It will make your eyes hang out of your shirt-front. Get ready to retire the small one". A few changes were made when the sculpture was enlarged. According to Michael D. Greenbaum, "in the large version the hand is outstretched, as if to balance the rider in the saddle, whereas in the earlier version the cowboy holds a quirt. The horse's head also angles slightly in the larger version as if it were attempting to shake off the cowboy's grip on the reins" (Icons of the West, Ogdensburg, New York, 1996, p. 153). Only nineteen casts of this large example were made. Other versions of this large cast can be found in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas, and the Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Cody, Wyoming. HID03101242017