Description

Montana Historical Society, Published 1979. Wraps, 28 pp.; 22 x 28 cm; oblong format; illustrated with color reproductions of paintings and watercolors, black-and-white pen-and-ink drawings, photographs of bronzes, and archival photographs. In Good+ condition. Glossy illustrated paper covers show mild shelf and edge wear, with bumping and creasing to edges and corners. Mild soiling and sticker residue in upper right corner of front cover. Diagonal discoloration mark and scattered light spotting on pale green rear cover, which carries Russell's buffalo skull device. Staple bound and tight. Pages unmarked, with light spotting and soiling to inside front cover and title page. Catalog of the Malcolm S. Mackay collection of Charles M. Russell art, held by the Montana Historical Society and shown in its enlarged Mackay Gallery in Helena since 1952. Mackay, a New York stockbroker and Montana rancher, was a close personal friend of Russell and assembled the collection directly from the artist and his widow beginning in 1911. Vivian A. Paladin's two essays, "Origins and Odyssey of a Collection" and "Facts and Reflections about Charles M. Russell," trace how the collection stayed in Montana after the family turned down a reported $225,000 offer, and how a public subscription campaign led by K. Ross Toole raised $50,000 to buy it for the state (donations arrived from ranchers, rodeos, lotteries, and a schoolroom money order for $3.98). Works reproduced include the oils "Indian Hunters' Return" (1911), "Toll Collectors" (1913), "When Horses Talk War There's Small Chance for Peace" (1915), and "Men of the Open Range" (1923); the watercolors "Indians and Scouts Talking" (1895) and "The Surprise Attack" (1898); the bronze self-portrait "The Horse Wrangler"; pen-and-ink drawings commissioned to illustrate Mackay's own book "Cow Range and Hunting Trail" (1925); five of the sixteen drawings from Russell's Western Types Series; and a facsimile of an illustrated letter Russell wrote to Mackay in September 1913. Photographed by Les F. Cramer. Closing tributes by Robert F. Morgan, K. Ross Toole, and Harold McCracken.