The Searchers
20TH-CENTURY ARTISTS EMBRACE THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE AMERICAN WEST, BUFFALO BILL CODY AND HOLLYWOOD.
By Larry Len Peterson
Editor’s Note: This is an excerpt from Larry Len Peterson’s forthcoming book The American West Reimagined: Gems from the Coeur d’alene Art Auction. It will be released in the spring of 2021.
If the Romantics dreamed of the promise of the West, as the 20th century approached, the Searchers—the generation of Western artists born in the 19th century and passed before the 21st century—sensed the elbowing out of their cherished mythical past. They had one foot in the 19th century and the other in the 20th.
The Searchers typically toggled between their homes in the East and temporary sojourns out West where they bagged artifacts, sketches and photographs for studio source material. No formula characterized this scattershot approach that shaped their art. Critical to their craft were Western myths, legends and truths which nurtured an endless stream of Western visions and imagination. Many became famous. Still, notoriety often did not equate to
monetary success. Others died not realizing their art would be highly prized over a hundred years later. Yet many found solace searching for their own identity and understanding of culture in a world that was forever changing.
Wild West Shows and Hollywood
Born in 1810, Phineas Taylor Barnum—who created the “Greatest Show on Earth” featuring Tom Thumb, the famous Siamese twins, and Jumbo the elephant, all under a traveling circus tent—brought his first show to the public in 1837. At about the time of a Barnum lecture and show in Kentucky in 1867, William F. Cody was earning fame by slaughtering bison to feed workers of the Kansas Pacific Railroad. Barnum by decades beat Cody in the use of
bison to thrill audiences. In the 1840s Barnum presented the first Wild West show in New York City, which featured American Indians. In the 1860s he added wild animals— bears, wolves, lions, buffalo and elk—when he partnered with James C. “Grizzly” Adams from California.
But it took a rotund, alcoholic drifter named Edward Zane Carroll Judson to bring romantic symbols and icons of the American West to the masses. He blended myth with reality to thrill readers and audiences. When he began writing stories, he used the pen name of Ned Buntline and started the sensational newspaper, Ned Buntline’s Own, but it closed down after he shot and murdered a man who accused him of stealing his wife. After the Civil War, by chance, he met William Frederick Cody who was born in 1846 in Le Claire, Iowa Territory. That meeting would transform how generations of Americans and artists viewed the West. Buntline wrote a story-paper serial Buffalo Bill, the King of Border Men for Street and Smith’s New York Weekly in the winter of 1869-1870.
By writing several novels about Buffalo Bill and a play The Scout of the Prairie—an 1872 melodrama in which Cody played himself at Chicago’s Palmer House hotel—buntline made Cody an international sensation whose shows in time would inspire countless young Americans and Europeans to become full-time Western artists. Cody starred in the play for 10 years. The 26-year-old was a superstar.
Starting in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1883 Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show was packaged and launched to the delight of massive crowds. His show promoters commissioned lithographers, photographers and famed Western American artists such as Frederic Remington and Charles Schreyvogel to create posters and other advertisements for promotional purposes. Adoring audiences saw an outdoor spectacle of Western skills by the likes of Annie Oakley, reenactments of historical events, fake battles, fake buffalo hunts, stage coaches whirling around the corners of the arena and the noble Sitting Bull, all while guided by America’s huntershowman. Cody preferred the Lakota warriors over others because of their brave and fierce reputation. In a time of racism, he paid his performers—both cowboys and Indians—well and the same pay. He was loyal to them, and they were loyal to Cody.
Cashing in on that success was the Miller’s 101 Ranch in northern Oklahoma, which started its own touring Wild West shows featuring countless cowboys and cowgirls and even at times Buffalo Bill, along with Geronimo and Bill Pickett. In addition, the bigger-than-life gun duels of “Wild Bill” Hickok and Wyatt Earp became legendary for generations of Americans not yet born. Every red blooded American boy and girl—and adult—wanted to run away and lose themselves in the glory of the Wild West. But if they couldn’t, they could live vicariously through Western art and literature.
In 1886 Cody’s show played at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Likewise, Europeans were entertained by the most famous American hunter, scout and showman. The fascination of the American West loomed large for many European artists who were captivated with the epic conflicts between Indians and cowboys on the American Plains. Featuring Annie Oakley, in 1887 Buffalo Bill’s first show in Europe was held in Great Britain. The Queen would have him perform at Windsor Castle. More tours followed, and in 1890 the extravaganza traveled around Europe where Cody met Pope Leo XIII. The New York World reported that Cody had, “encircled the earth with his Wild West” and spread, “the fever.” To appeal to overseas audiences, Buffalo Bill in 1893 changed the name of his extravaganza to Buffalo Bill’s Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders of the World. By then, Cody was the most famous American on earth. At its peak, the show employed over 600 workers. A savvy businessman, he hired the best people and let them do the work for him.
Still, Indians were presented as devalued props subdued by valiant cowboys who saved settlers from the evil savages. Native American heroes such as Lakota Chief Sitting Bull were exploited at the same time Buffalo Bill showed off his trophy to the audience, the scalp of the Cheyenne warrior Yellow Hair. Just a few weeks after Custer and his men were defeated on June 25, 1876, at the Little Bighorn, Buffalo Bill adorned in a showman’s outfit killed and scalped the warrior on the Great Plains. The legend was born. Later, he would become an advocate for Indian rights.
Hoping to cash in on the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Cody bought land outside the fair entrance and had almost as many people attending his show as did the fair—up to 15,000 a day, seven days a week. Total, over 2 million viewed his spectacle, which made Buffalo Bill a millionaire. Despite the Panic of 1893 that led to a depression, with money to burn Buffalo Bill
sank much of it into developing Cody, Wyoming—founded in 1896. Ever restless and with the gold bug, Cody next directed his energies toward mining operations outside of Tucson, Arizona. Both the town, the gold mines, oil speculation in Oklahoma, along with other schemes drained his finances. As a speculative investor, Cody did not fare well. In 1913 he failed to repay a $20,000 loan and lost his show in Denver to a newspaper man who repackaged it under his name. Cody died of kidney failure on January 10, 1917, in Denver, possibly by the ingestion of a “white powder” from Canada that he took for years for chronic headaches.
Despite the success of Wild West shows, their halcyon days were coming to an end because beginning in the early 20th century they were marginalized by the success of the silent Western movies. The Wild West was portrayed in movie theaters in almost every berg in America and Europe. At first, in 1908 the Miller brothers began a close relationship with the Hollywood movie industry. In fact, one and two reelers were shot on their California ranch by William N. Selig, a pioneer film producer who had entered the nascent film industry in the 1890s.
Visions of the American West were defined by the Western film and reimagined in the art of the Searchers.
Together, they both augmented and contradicted the Romantic art of the 19th century. For many of them, in a Western movie and art the main character was the landscape—an inspiration for directors such as John Ford. He was guided by the landscape art of the likes of Thomas Moran and Albert Bierstadt, the grandeur of Monument Valley, and the images created by Western artists such as Frederic Remington and Charles M. Russell.
When the earliest Westerns were made, remnants of the “Wild West” still remained. Early on, themes for films were derived from plays but more importantly from 19th-century Western novels. The earliest Westerns portrayed the conflict between good and evil. Western good—after hardships— triumphed over evil in an Eden-like setting. Thus, it embraced the morality stories of Christianity and honored Manifest Destiny. Other themes explored Darwin’s survival of the fittest: man vs. hostile nature; man vs. hostile natives; and crimes and chases set in the 19th century American West. Brave white men engaged innocent white women who were either heroines or strong, tough saloon girls with a heart of gold. Then followed the pioneering family with motherly figures and tomboy girls. Those themes were adapted by Western artists into their art. Thus art begot film which begot art.
As a result of the success of the Western, before World War I that genre was almost all many films companies were making. Not only did the public demand it, but so did many of the wealthiest Americans such as industrialists, oilmen and actors who also avidly collected Western art. Established Western artists delighted in that fact, and young hopefuls dreamed of delivering to patrons what they so desired. In the 1920s the Western celebrated subjects such as building railways, and pioneering wagon trains and their harrowing voyages.
Showing Off
Armed with inspiration, the Searchers throughout the 20th century needed venues to show their art, promote their art, sell their art and learn from other artists. Exposure came in the form of exhibitions at home-studios, art museums, world’s fairs, professional organizations and private art galleries—babcock, Folsom, Kennedy, Grand Central, Harlow, Bartfield and Knoedler (New York); J.W. Young and Thurber (Chicago); Vose (Boston); and Stendahl (Los Angeles), among many others. Other prestigious venues included exhibitions at the National Academy of Design, the Salmagundi Club and the Art Students League in New York City; the Art Institute of Chicago; and the Philadelphia Institute of the Fine Arts.
Founded in 1825, the leading honorary society for the visual arts and architecture was the National Academy of Design. The organization advocated for the arts as a tool for education and celebrated the roles of artists in public life. The members were divided into two grades, Academicians and Associates, the number of each was originally limited to one hundred. The Associates were chosen from the professional artists of the whole country and the Academicians from the body of the Associates. An Associate was eligible for election only if the artist exhibited at the organization. Some Associates never advanced to full Academician. The titles were modified after the Civil War to Associate National Academician (A.N.A.) and National Academician (N.A.). Numerous Western American artists were members.
A group of five artists, students and friends at the National Academy of Design began gathering on Saturday evenings at the studio of J. Scott Hartley, and in 1871 the Salmagundi Club was formed as a sketch club in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan, New York City, a hotbed for fine artists and illustrators—although at the time no distinction was made between the two. The Club adopted its name after a Washington Irving publication of a series of his wit and wisdom writings The Salmagundi Papers or Whim-whams and Opinions of Launcelot Longstaff, Esq. and Others (18071808). Salmigandos is a ragout stew of different sorts of meat and flavorings served hot. Almost all of the 29 early members who joined the Club were students or instructors at the National Academy of Design and later seceded from the Academy with the group who founded the Art Students League. In 1917 the Salmagundi Club acquired the Irad
Hawley brownstone mansion at 47 Fifth Avenue in New York City for $75,000, and it remains a vibrant organization today. Early on, the main purpose of the Club was to promote its members by exhibitions, which were held in their magnificent gallery on the second floor. Auctions and painting classes were also held there. Members included Harvey Dunn, Howard Pyle, Norman Rockwell, Joseph C. Leyendecker, Edwin A. Abbey, Gilbert Gaul, A.B. Frost, Charles Dana Gibson, Childe Hassam, Louis C. Tiffany, Ralph Blakelock, William Merritt Chase, Frederick Stuart Church, Augustus Saint-gaudens, N.C. Wyeth, Maynard
Dixon, Carl Rungius, Frank Tenney Johnson, Ogden Pleissner and Philip R. Goodwin, along with many other artists. For example, every one of the founders of the Taos Society of Artists were members, and four of them—including Joseph Henry Sharp and Eanger Irving Couse—donated paintings to pay for the building in 1917. Thomas Moran served as the fourth president (1893-1896).
The Art Students League was founded in 1875 when a group of artists at the National Academy of Design broke away so they would have more variety and flexibility in their curriculum. They had also been informed that the
Academy may not open that fall due to financial problems. Classes were originally taught by Lemuel E. Wilmarth who also was an instructor at the Academy. He was the first president of the League. Their permanent building was finished in 1892 and was located on 57th Street in New York City. Early instructors included William Merritt Chase, Augustus Saint-gaudens, Frank Duveneck, George Bridgman, among others. Famous artists associated with the League were Thomas Hart Benton, Georgia O’keeffe, Norman Rockwell, Winslow Homer, Thomas Eakins, Childe Hassam, Robert Henri, Maxfield Parrish, among dozens of others. A number of New Mexico artists were members.
Still, another important venue was the Biltmore Gallery/ Salon, which opened in December 1923 in the Biltmore Hotel located at 506 South Grand Avenue in Los Angeles. The Salon was operated by an association of artists— it was started in 1923 by artists (Victor) Clyde Forsythe, Jack Wilkinson Smith and Frank Tenney Johnson—and charged smaller commissions than private galleries. The Biltmore show featured the first public exhibition of one of Russell’s finest bronzes, The Bucker and the Buckaroo. The association was called the Painters of the West, and they had their first exhibition on May 26, 1924, in the Biltmore Gallery. The show continued through the middle of June and included 30 artists. Thomas Moran was selected as honorary member of the group. A 1924 newspaper article noted, “Headed by Marrus Brabant, President of the Biltmore Salon, and backed both morally and financially by the City Council of Los Angeles, the exhibitions in the galleries at the Biltmore are doing a splendid work for art.”
In the 20th century, through Western American art, publications, exhibitions, Wild West shows, rodeos, world’s fairs, movies and museums, the average American’s appreciation and understanding of the history of the American West and its art was crafted. Even though the Old West was gone, the Searchers for over a century felt an urgency to delineate its past with truth, fact, legend, and myth. Generations of new, outstanding Western American artists inspired by their predecessors continue the Search.
Western American art historian Dr. Larry Len Peterson is the 2019 Montana Heritage Guardian Award recipient, the highest honor bestowed by the Montana Historical Society Board of Trustees in Helena. His biographies include Charles M. Russell, Legacy: Printed and Published Works of Montana’s Cowboy Artist; Charles M. Russell, Photographing the Legend: A Biography in Words and Pictures; Philip R. Goodwin: America’s Sporting and Wildlife Artist; and L. A. Huffman: Photographer of the American West.