O.C. Seltzer’s West
A major new exhibition of work by O.C. Seltzer elevates the artist’s legacy and explores his contributions to Western art.
Great Falls, MT
When O.C. Seltzer, the great Montana painter of cowboys and Native Americans, died in 1957, his biggest art fan was nearby, but not yet an artist. Art would come later—much later—for W. Steve Seltzer, O.C.’S grandson. And when it did he regretted not asking more art questions of his famous grandfather.
“I was 13 when he died, and I just wish I had intelligent questions about art back then,” Steve says. “For me he was grandpa. He was in his 70s then—he died at 80—and we didn’t have a car at the time so we would walk about 12 blocks to his house here in Great Falls, Montana. We’d help him rake the yard and clean up, and grandmother would fix us lunch. I remember he had a small backroom in the house where he painted. There was nothing fancy about it, and it was neat as a pin. He was very fastidious—everything had a place and everything was in its place. Some artists might seem like they have cluttered studios with paraphernalia and whatever, but not with him. I do remember him working on some smaller paintings and I would watch him a little bit. It struck me that he wasn’t applying much paint at the time. As a kid we wanted to see big broad brushstrokes, but he was making these little strokes that you could barely see.” Steve would grow up to be a successful painter, as well as an expert on his grandfather, who is the subject of a new exhibition, O.C. Seltzer’s West, now open at the C.M. Russell Museum in Great Falls, Montana. Steve helped organize the show and offered a number of major pieces from his own collection, including The Stag of St. Hubert, which shows a marshy scene of a hunter having an almost mystical encounter with his prey.
“The basis for the painting is a man born into French nobility. He grew up around money and opportunity and he became a great hunter. He would eventually start killing everything that moved. Legend has it he went into the woods and saw a stag with a cross between his antlers. He actually heard God speak, and it was kind of a revelation to him. He started thinking that maybe he should change his ways,” Steve says of the myth that led to the painting. “He took it as an omen and he never hunted again. Today he’s the patron saint of hunters because he advocated for the humane practices for hunters…he actually got the idea from Charlie Russell who
had done a show in St. Louis in 1913 and had seen a similar work there. I think it’s one of O.C.’S masterpieces.”
Russell’s name frequently comes up a lot in stories about O.C. Seltzer. The two were friends and both lived in Great Falls. Today some collectors and scholars write off O.C.’S work as less relevant than Russell’s, but Steve hopes the new exhibition will allow viewers to see how important his grandfather’s work is to the canon of Western art.
“When you read much about Russell, the books will either not mention a thing about him or somehow malign him for being a Russell copyist. I get the impression from some that he shouldn’t have been a painter at all. It’s irritated me over the years because you don’t have to degrade O.C.’S work to somehow elevate Russell’s. Russell doesn’t need any help—he’s the number one guy in the West,” Steve says. “For Seltzer, though, he wasn’t even competing with Russell, and his career took longer to develop. For this show I wanted to show that O.C. Seltzer, despite being influenced by Russell, he was an artist in his own right. And a great one, too.”
In addition to a stunning collection of paintings, Steve says the exhibition will show many of O.C.’S interests, including his love of nature and horses, his stamp collection and a bug collection that had species from all around the world.