Monday, December 31, 2007

Culture Break: Remington's Snaps

The great painter of the old West, Frederic Remington, was a camera buff:

Remington first carried a camera with him in 1886 while in pursuit of Geronimo. He dreamed in color, but as an illustrator lived in a black-and-white world. The camera was an invaluable ally, supplementing sketches and color notes on the landscape (“The ground of the south west has more burnt sienna in it than I had thought”) by recording the precise details he needed in order to work up convincing illustrations. “After a good night rest” in Tucson, Arizona, he “went to the detachment of 10th Colored Cavalry—took a whole set of photographs.” He photographed soldiers, scouts, buildings and, at Fort Huachaca, a trooper posing for a painting he planned that would show Lt. Powhatan H. Clarke’s daring rescue under heavy Apache fire of a wounded man.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You can see many photographs that Frederic Remington took himself and many more he collected at www.fredericremington.org.

Michael Wade said...

Thanks, Laura. I love Remington's work.

Michael