Russell the Revolutionary

The following piece was written last summer.  I thought maybe I'd already published it as a blog or something, or included parts of it in another post, but I can't find it anywhere.  So, here it is.  

I didn't attend any of the Russell Auction events this year (not even the Native American shows, which I've usually visited in the past), but it looks as though nothing much has changed.  Artists who rent rooms and try to sell their works outside the auction format were reportedly disappointed,  while the main event auction at the Heritage Inn  was record-setting.  They still seem to be selling works out of the Museum, which is always tricky, and Tom Gilleon, a local artist I've met a time or two, had a work that sold for $225,000 - a record, they say, for a local, living artist in these auctions.  

What I did write about the Russell when I still had the Tribune blog was similar to this essay, so you may have already heard something like this from me.  The local "Charlie Russell community" is as diverse and often at odds with each other as any other group of independent thinkers, each with his or her own connections to the Russell legacy.  But I think we have turned the corner in finally doing what this essay proposes:  that we take back the Russell and his work from the boosters and promoters (and profiteers) whom Russell, himself, despised.  

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Russell the Revolutionary
7-11-12

Charles Bent Russell.  Remember that guy?  His mother was a Bent, his great-uncle killed at Taos in the territorial transition following the Mexican War.  The Bent's were as important to the development of the Southwest as, say, Pierre Chouteau or Manual Lisa were to the Upper Missouri.  And Fort Benton and the American Fur Company were basically just the "Northern Branch" of the same enterprise based in St. Louis.  (Thomas Hart Benton was the first and greatest "Senator From Missouri," and a bloody imperialist to the core - John Charles Fremont was his son-in-law, and together, they are credited with securing the conquest of California, among other things).

So, the local "boosters" of economic development, whom Russell vociferously opposed, were none other than Russell, himself, his family and associates.  He was at the center of what future sustainability historians might see as a "revolutionary cell" - bent (no pun intended) on overthrowing the natural, sustainable, long-term regime - that of the Plains Indians. 

But Charlie rebelled and recanted (his family had owned slaves pre-Civil War).  Russell is the guy who really "turned Indian."  Once he saw the process with his own eyes, he couldn't help but join the Resistance, and defend Native peoples with all his abilities and resources.  And that is why the local Great Falls business community has always hated him, and tried to suppress or otherwise get rid of his work.  It's worth a lot in oil money, so that's where most of it has gone - to the Oil Barons and the the museums they established.  The proverbial "supply and demand."  

Some of us have been diligently following this process, and attempting to alter it whenever the opportunity arises.  Since I practically grew up playing around Russell's home and studio, and the beginnings of the Museum which now exists, I claim some right to have an opinion on these issues.  Unfortunately, that's just about all that I can do.  And few, if any, listen.  There aren't a lot of people who share a love for the work of CM Russell who also have an understanding of the history and politics behind his work - especially that pertaining to Native Americans and their plight and struggle.  

For many, he has simply become a brand name - a "profit center" for our local community so that even something as simple and important as the Russell Auction cannot withstand the pressures of dealers, local convention and tourist businesses, and the demands of political expediency in managing the affairs of the City of Great Falls.  Randy Gray, a former Mayor, was a long-time chairman of the Russell Museum board.  And many other prominent local people served on it - few with any distinction or credit to themselves.  Replacing these people with a "National Board" (which does include a few wealthier Montanans - basically, you have to buy your way on to it) has been disastrous - even while the bricks and mortar (and debts) pile up.  

Several important works from the collection have already been sold, as well as the works of other Western artists closely associated with the Russell Tradition.  Imagine Russell as one of the 5 best-known French Impressionists.  That was approximately his stature among the Western American painters and sculptors (and writers, film-makers, etc.), and it still is.  His work is our greatest treasure, and using and abusing it as has been done in recent years (clearly marked by the firing of Elizabeth Dear and dispersing the archives she assembled in preparing the Catalogue Raisonne) is simply another sign of the decline and impending destruction of our Satanic nuclear garrison town, and the legal-political machines which control everything here.