Works of Art

In December 1905 Remington sent a drawing as a special Christmas greeting to Riccardo Bertelli, the owner of Roman Bronze Works. The drawing depicts Remington leaning confidently on a sculpting stand, upon which is placed a finished clay model of his latest bronze subject, The Outlaw. The model shows a horse bucking its rear legs high into the air, with only one of its forward legs touching the base. On the left of the drawing is Riccardo Bertelli’s head, a surprised expression on his face. At the bottom of the drawing, Remington has the following dialogue between the two of them: “R: ’Can you cast him?’ B: ’Do you think I am one of the Wright brothers?’” Such an exchange was probably very common at the foundry, for Remington was continually pushing the bounds of what could be cast; his compositions grew increasingly complex, and his figures seemed to want to fly into space and leave the base behind.

In the final bronze version of The Outlaw, as can be seen here, both of the horse’s front legs are attached to the base. During Remington’s lifetime, approximately fifteen casts were produced; beyond that, it is estimated that another twenty-five were made. For Remington, the success of this composition depended on the carefully contrived degree of pitch of the horse and rider relative to the base. If the figures were not balanced just beyond the perceived center of gravity, the sculpture would lose the sense of forward movement. The unnumbered cast reproduced here is a posthumous cast that lacks the refinements of a lifetime example. The horse and rider pitch too far forward; textural details are largely absent, and certain elements such as the horse’s mane or the foliage on the base are oddly stylized.