Charlie Russell's Montana: he was the West's greatest painter. Now you can explore the land that inspired him - Travel

Drive U.S. 87 between Great Falls and Lewistown, Montana, and you will see a landscape as unforgettable as any in the West: a cloud-flecked bowl of blue sky, the wide green plains, and the distant purple mountains--the Highwoods, the Little Belts, and the Snowys.

A magnificent landscape and strangely familiar, too, for it inspired one of the greatest artists of the American West: Charles Marion Russell. Over his lifetime, Russell completed some 4,500 oils, watercolors, sculptures, sketches, and illustrated letters. They depicted the Native American tribes who were the prairies' original inhabitants; explorers and fur trappers; and, most memorably, the cowboys of the open-range ranches, where Russell himself worked.

Today's Montana is changed. Tepees have been replaced by missile silos, Native American trails by highways driven by "skunk wagons" (Russell's name for cars). Still, the land's beauty abides. Trace Russell's path and you will come to love the landscape that shaped his life and art.

Kid Russell in Utica

Charles M. Russell's port of entry into cowboy life was Utica, Montana, situated in the lush Judith Basin. In the 1880s, Utica was headquarters for cowboys working the basin's huge herds of open-range cattle.

The tenderfoot was in his early teens; after a short, dismal schooling, he left his well-off family in St. Louis for a Western adventure. He wintered for two years with mountain man Jake Hoover, then worked wrangling cattle.

It was here that Russell became an artist. During the terrible winter of 1886-87, when snow and cold killed nearly 90 percent of the herds, Russell sent a postcard-size painting to Helena ranch owners depicting the carnage. Titled Waiting for a Chinook, the painting featured a single starving steer with wolves lurking in the background. It circulated widely in Helena, helping to establish Russell's reputation.

Today's Utica is a sleepy town, but there are places that draw your attention. The Utica Museum details lives of famous residents, including Russell and Calamity Jane, and shows relics of Utica's cowboy past.

On a gravel road 13 miles south of town, the Circle Bar Guest Ranch features 60 quarter horses, hiking, and fishing. Come September, true Russell fans willing to pony up $1,700 can join the annual guided historical Russell Trail Ride. "There's something special about covering the same ground that Russell did over a hundred years ago," says Sarah Stevenson, owner of the Circle Bar. "It's like actually riding into the canvas."

Lewistown and Great Falls

Head northeast from Utica on U.S. 87 and you'll be following part of Montana's C.M. Russell Auto Tour, which matches Russell's paintings with towns and landmarks in the Judith Basin. Soon you'll reach Lewistown, nestled along Big Spring Creek.

For Kid Russell, as he was called, Lewistown was the place he came to kick up his heels, and, it is said, exchange sketches for drinks in local saloons. It's still one of the most authentic towns in Montana. Downtown appears much as it did in the early 1900s, and along Main Street you'll find jewelry stores that carry the locally mined brilliant blue yogo sapphires. The Charlie Russell Chew-Choo offers 3 1/2-hour round-trip rides to the small town of Denton and back.

From Lewistown, head back northwest on U.S. 87 to Great Falls, which was, in some ways, for Russell what Paris was to Picasso. Here he gained a wide audience for his work and became a striking public figure with his blond hair, buckskin shirt, and characteristic red sash.

Russell moved to Great Falls in 1897 with his wife and lifetime manager, Nancy Cooper Russell, a housekeeper from Cascade, Montana. "She is the business end and I am the creative," Russell said of his partnership. "She lives for tomorrow and I live for yesterday."

The Russells built on the "good" side of town, at 1219 Fourth Avenue North. Russell worked mornings in his studio, built of telephone poles. After that, he'd lunch with Nancy; then, legend has it, he'd ride off to one of his favorite saloons, Nancy standing at the door, two fingers held in the air to say, Two drinks, Charlie.

Today the house and the studio are part of the C.M. Russell Museum, which offers docent-led tours of its galleries of Russell works and of Russell's home and studio. New galleries--the result of a recent $5.7 million expansion--display photography, contemporary Western art, and outdoor sculpture.

As Russell's art triumphed in exhibitions in 1911 in New York and Rome, his work commanded higher prices--a painting sold for $1,000--and his social circle widened to include author Will James and actor Will Rogers. By the 1920s, Russell and his wife spent winters in California, They built a home in Pasadena, although Russell would not live to see its completion. On a Christmas card written weeks before his death, he wrote, "Heres hoping the worst end of your trail is behind you / That Dad Time be your friend from here to the end/And sickness nor sorrow dont find you."