Charles M. Russell, Word Painter: Letters 1887-1926

Charles M. Russell, Word Painter: Letters 1887-1926 is the most comprehensive collection of Russell's correspondence ever assembled. Letters to his wife Nancy, to patrons and fellow artists, and to the saloonkeepers and cowboys who remained his friends for life reveal a surprisingly modest man. Russell downplayed his own verbal skills, but his letters show that he was an artist with words as well as paint, able to evoke a bygone era or make a shrewd social observation in a few well-chosen sentences. Each letter is reproduced in facsimile, allowing readers to see, in the artist's own handwriting and with his inimitable spellings and punctuation, how Russell cleverly interwove colorful sketches and eloquent words to form a memorable whole.
In the accompanying commentary, Brian Dippie places each of Russell's letters within the broader context of the artist's life and career. Dippie identifies the recipient of each letter and the circumstances that prompted the correspondence, clarifies Russell's references to other friends and acquaintances and, where appropriate, relates events in the letter to Russell's artistic development. Photographs, including many that belonged to the Russells, further illustrate the world that the artist and his friends inhabited.