Works of Art

In November 1909, Remington began work on a larger version of his famous bronze, The Broncho Buster. He wrote in his diary that he had “certainly learned a lot” about sculpture since he had done the earlier version, and he seemed enthusiastic over the changes he was making to the model. “This size lends itself to my hand better than the smaller,” he wrote in his diary. He triumphantly wrote Riccardo Bertelli, the owner of Roman Bronze Works, that he had completed three weeks of work on the clay model. “You ought to see the 1 1/2 Bronco Buster—It will make your eyes hang out on your shirt,” he wrote. “Get ready to retire the small one—mind you.” In December the foundry’s artisans arrived at Remington’s studio to make a plaster version of the model, and it was shipped to the foundry in preparation for Remington’s visit to apply his touches to the wax intermediary model prior to casting it in bronze. Unfortunately, Remington died the day after Christmas; the model was eventually cast under the authority of his widow, without the artist’s involvement. This cast is one of approximately nineteen that were produced by the estate.

Remington is known to have employed photographs as subject guides to his work, and his studio collection contained photographs of cowboys on rearing and bucking horses. Such photographs also enabled Remington to achieve the degree of accuracy that he desired in his subjects. Of all the subjects he depicted, none were more dear to him than those that glorified the exploits of the western horse. “As a saddle animal simply, the bronco has no superior, but this particular American horse lays claim to another quality, which in my estimation is not the least, and that is his wonderful picturesqueness,” Remington wrote. “He graces the western landscape, not because he reminds us of the equine ideal, but because he comes of the soil, and has borne the heat and burden and the vicissitudes of all that pale of romance which will cling about the western frontier.”