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THBCharles M. Russell (1864 – 1926) – Friend Cal Letter (1908)
About Seller
11944 North Tracey Road
Hayden, ID 83835
United States
Coeur d’Alene Art Auction specializes in the finest classical Western and American Art representing past masters and outstanding contemporary artists. The auction principals have over 100 years of combined experience in selling fine art and have netted their clients over $325 million in the last fif...Read more
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About Auction
LiveJul 27, 2024
The 2024 Coeur d’Alene Art Auction, to be held July 27 in Reno, Nevada, will feature 404 selections of unparalleled quality in Western & American Art from historical and contemporary artists such as Howard Terpning, Charles M. Russell, Frederic Remington, William R. Leigh, Albert Bierstadt, W. Herbert Dunton, and more. Coeur d'Alene Art Auction info@cdaartauction.com
View Full Catalog (402)
- Lot Description
Charles M. Russell (1864 – 1926)
Friend Cal Letter (1908)
watercolor and ink on paper
letters: 10.25 × 6.25 inches each; envelope: 3.5 × 6.25 inches
signed lower right
According to Brian W. Dippie, “Cal Hubbard was chairman of the local arrangements committee for the Elks’ state convention, held in Great Falls on August 12-14, 1908, so this letter is full of fraternal references. Charlie wanted to know how Percy Raban had fared during the Elks initiation rite of riding on a goat. (When Percy underwent surgery a few weeks later, Charlie sympathized: ‘It was tough enough when you tuck the antlers, but stepping off the goat onto the meet block is piling it up on you plenty.’) Russell’s own initiation had been only a few months earlier, so when Hubbard approached him to do the art for a convention promotion, Charlie responded with a sketch of a disheveled but smug cowboy artist, tie and sash askew, shirt buttons popped and hair a mess, pointing his thumb toward a saddled goat sporting an elk brand and still looking ornery despite the picture’s caption: ‘I rode him.’ The poster made a huge hit. “Every delegate will be anxious to meet Charley Russell, personally, “ the Tribune reported. But while Charlie wished his brothers all success in raising money selling his picture, he was not about to become ‘a sad show attraction.’ And he was entertaining a passel of family at Lake McDonald – his father C. S. Russell, his new stepmother Florence, her son C. Kier David, Charlie’s niece and nephew Isabel and Austin Russell, Nancy’s father J. A. Cooper, and Nancy’s half sister Ella C. Allen, whom the Russells had brought from California to Great Falls two years before. Ella went to school in Great Falls, worked as a bookkeeper at the Tribune, married in 1910, and eventually moved on. Austin Russell, who had made two previous visits to Montana, also stayed on with the Russells in 1908 and lived in Great Falls until 1916, becoming part of Charlie and Nancy’s extended family.
“Cal Hubbard owned his own business, the Hubbard Abstract Company, which maintained ‘complete abstract records of all lots and lands in Cascade County.’ Charlie congratulated him on his recent ‘tie up,’ but the distant future was to bring something he could never have anticipated. In 1931, Hubbard would marry again, in Nancy Russell’s home in Pasadena, to a widow, the former Katharine ‘Kittie’ Kohnen, who had married Robert P. Roberts in the Russells’ Great Falls home in 1905.”
PROVENANCE
The artist
Cal Hubbard, Great Falls, Montana, 1908
Red McCombs Collection, San Antonio, Texas
LITERATURE
Jim Fowler’s Period Gallery West, 1981, p. 28, illustrated
Brian W. Dippie, Charles M. Russell, Word Painter: Letters 1887-1926, Amon Carter Museum, 1993, pp. 102-03, illustrated
View More InformationCondition
As viewed through glass. Both papers appear to be in good condition, though slightly yellowed. Envelope has a semicircular stain in both top-center and lower-right portions. Diagonal crease on right side. The first and second pages of the letter each have five horizontal creases, corresponding where the letter was folded to fit in the envelope.
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