Content provided in partnership with

Frederic Remington's studio: a reflection

Magazine Antiques, Nov, 1994 by Peter H. Hassrick

For most of his creative and enormously productive life, Frederic Remington, acclaimed for his distinctive pictorial vision of the American West, lived and worked in New Rochelle, New York. His aesthetic expression, reflected in thousands of illustrations, paintings, and bronzes, presented the western experience as a symbol of much that is at once felicitously and tragically unique in American history. It is his portrayal of the frontier saga that has shaped the public's view of what the West was and why it mattered.

Most Popular Articles in Home & Garden: Coolest room on the block: have a bedroom that's way drab and boring? Hang ...; Reuse, recycle, remodel: environmentally friendly materials and techniques ...; Keeping it simple: interior designer Michael Lee finds an overdesigned ...; House of the Year: this craftsman-inspired home is factory-built--proving ...; Dreaming of cabin life: smart ideas for small spaces, plus the hottest spots ...; More »

Remington's perspective was one of distance infused with firsthand observations made during his frequent visits to the West. The genius of his expression was born of his precision of observation, his facile technical skill, fertile imagination, and the ambiance created by his renowned studio, which is now in the Whitney Gallery of Western Art at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyoming.

Remington and his wife, Eva, moved to New Rochelle in 1890, three years after he had begun his professional career as an illustrator and painter. A small attractive community, New Rochelle was close enough to New York City to afford quick access to the publishing houses and galleries necessary for the artist, and yet was rural enough to provide Remington with the space he needed for bicycling, horseback riding, and other physical activities that relieved the long hours of concentration required by his work. Moreover, an artists' colony had grown up in the town, so that the Remingtons counted among their neighbors writers, actors, and artists such as Francis Wilson, Julian Hawthorne, Edward Kemble, and Augustus Thomas.

The Remingtons' substantial Gothic revival house was situated at 301 Webster Avenue, on a prestigious promontory known as Lathers Hill. A sweeping lawn rolled south toward Long Island Sound, providing views on three sides of the beautiful Westchester County countryside. Remington called it Endion, an Algonquin word meaning "the place where I live."

In the early years, no real studio existed at Endion. Remington did most of his work in a large attic under the gable, where he stored materials collected on his many western jaunts. Later he used his library on the main floor, a larger, more comfortable room that soon took on the cluttered appearance of an atelier.(1) However, neither situation was completely satisfactory: the space was limited, the light was less than adequate, and the surroundings were generally uninspiring. In the spring of 1896 Remington retained the New Rochelle architect O. William Degen to plan a studio addition to the house. An article in the New Rochelle Pioneer of April 26 touted the "fine architectural design" of the proposed studio. Remington himself wrote to his friend the novelist Owen Wister:

Have concluded to build a butler's pantry and a studio (Czar size) on my house--we will be torn [up] for a month and then will ask you to come over--throw your eye on the march of improvement and say this is a great thing for American art. The fireplace is going to be like this.--Old Norman house--Big--big.(2)

In many ways, the studio serves as a mirror of an artist's personality, a place where he can define himself outside his art. As Elizabeth Bisland wrote in Cosmopolitan Magazine in 1889,

Generally speaking, the kind of workshop in which a man with greatest ease and satisfaction to himself brings forth and perfects his creations, is an accurate suggestion of the quality of work attempted there, and of the character of the workman.(3)

The studio Remington created at Endion was certainly a pure manifestation of the artistic persona he had established early in his artistic life--a robust, adventurous, and exotic character who disdained anything that hinted of refinement or delicacy and who adhered, almost monomaniacally, to the cult of masculinity.

The room measured twenty by forty feet on the floor, and twenty feet to the rooftree. There was a huge brick fireplace, over which hung an enormous moose head; and Plains Indian war shirts and shields, rifles, and a wide variety of cowboy gear decorated the space. The walls were painted rose red, for as Remington wrote pragmatically to his fellow artist Carl Rungius (1869-1959), "In most galleries your paintings go against hot backgrounds, and one should try to get the same environment."(4) The color of the walls lent warmer hues to the paintings hung against them and at the same time made the room more enticing, so that although during the day Remington's studio was almost exclusively a place of work, in the evenings it provided a commodious place for socializing. Martha Summerhayes recalled many occasions when she and her husband shared the studio hearth with the Remingtons, but even these reminiscences are pervaded by the masculine air of the place:

And so we sat, many evenings into the night, Frederic and Jack stretched in their big leather chairs puffing away at their pipes, Eva with her needlework and myself a rapt listener; wondering at this man of genius, who could work with his creative brush all day long and talk with...eloquence...half the night.(5)

Frederic Remington's studio: a reflection

Magazine Antiques, Nov, 1994 by Peter H. Hassrick

Find Research Guides for:

Find Featured Titles for: Arts

Most Popular Articles in Home & Garden

Most Popular Publications in Home & Garden