C.M. Russell paintings worth millions highlight March in Montana art show
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
Anyone who has spent some length of time in central Montana is well aware of the life story of Great Falls’ favorite son, famed western artist Charles Marion Russell. Fewer may know of Russell’s close association with Great Falls Elk Lodge #214, and how that fraternal organization continues to burnish his legacy.
Russell first came to Montana in 1880 as a recalcitrant teenager, eager to leave the confines of his parent's home in St. Louis. Few expressed great prospects for Russell. He was a poor student and only a passable cow hand. However his natural talent as a painter, sculptor, and storyteller – plus the business savvy of his wife Nancy – ultimately propelled Russell onto the national stage as one of the greatest western artists who ever lived.
Russell married Nancy in 1896 when he was 32 and she was an 18-year-old live-in housekeeper in Cascade, Montana. A year later, the couple moved from their "honeymoon cabin" in Cascade to the growing industrial center at Great Falls, where the Russells remained for most of the rest of Charlie’s life.
Over the next decade Charlie Russell continued to build upon his reputation as an artist. By 1908 the couple owned a home and art studio in Great Falls and could afford to buy land and a cabin on the shore of Lake McDonald, in what would soon become Glacier National Park. It was in that year, shortly after his 44th birthday and having achieved a certain level of notoriety, that Russell was accepted as a member of the Benevolent and Protective Order of the Elks.
“Charlie’s initiation in the Great Falls Lodge ... was one of Charlie’s most cherished moments,” said author Larry Peterson in his book Charles M. Russell: Photographing the Legend. “He proudly wore his Elks’ pin on his lapel the rest of his life.”
The Elks was a prominent organization in Great Falls at the turn of the century and throughout Russell’s lifetime. Members were actively involved in the young city’s growth and development. It's membership included community dignitaries like Paris Gibson, the city’s founder and first mayor. Russell was an active member of the Elks throughout much of his life. The fraternal organization was also a source of strong social connections and entertainment for Russell where many of his cowboy friends also belonged.
Construction of a new lodge to serve the club's growing membership began just a couple of years after Russell was admitted to the fraternal organization. Following the new Elks Lodge's completion in 1912, members asked Russell if he would be willing to contribute one of his works for the building's dedication.
“Charlie Russell replied with his customary grunt, leaving everyone in doubt as to his intention,” brief history of Great Falls Elks Lodge recounts. “But, so the story goes – one day Russell appeared with a roll of canvas which he tossed on the table – it was the famous painting “The Exalted Ruler.”
Widely considered to be one of Russell’s masterpieces, The Exalted Ruler is a large oil painting filled with symbolism significant to the Elks organization. At its center stands a large bull elk surveying his harem of cows and the surrounding Montana landscape.
According to information supplied by the Great Falls Elks Club the elk that forms the focus of Russell’s painting is symbolic of the President of the Elks Club, who is also referred to as “the Exalted Ruler.”
“On the left is the out-going Exalted Ruler, a big bull with a large rack,” the narrative continues. “On the right is another bull with a rack who is next year’s Exalted Ruler. Just to the left of this one is a bull with spike horns and is the future Exalted Ruler. In front is a grouse hiding by a rack of horns that represents the past Exalted Ruler."
On the signature line of this painting Russell added a dedication reading, “To My Brothers.”
The Exalted Ruler hung in the Great Falls Elks Club for the next 70 years. However, troubles for the painting began in 1982 when pranksters trying to turn the Exalted Ruler upside-down on its display ended up dropping the precious artwork, punching three holes in its canvas. Concern over the painting’s security and soaring insurance costs prompted the Elks Lodge to loan Exalted Ruler to the Russell Museum later that same year.
In 1994, the Great Falls Elks Lodge decided to sell the painting to the Russell Museum at a price of $1.2 million – though it could have easily sold for more than twice that price on the open market. The agreement required the museum to raise funds and make the purchase within the following year.
The museum launched a fundraising campaign with a theme of "Give us an inch... so we can keep the Ruler." Each gift of $250 allowed the museum to purchase one square inch of the painting. Approximately 69 local schools participated in the campaign, with one class of just 15 students donating $1,000. Ultimately close to $1 million was raised to keep The Exalted Ruler in Great Falls. It allowed the Russell Museum to purchase the masterwork in April 1995, where it has hung as one of the museum’s most prized, centerpiece paintings ever since.
Popular auction brings Russell back to Elks Lodge
For the next 20 years Elks Lodge #214’s connection to Charlie Russell remained a point of pride, but the lodge had little contemporary connection with the cowboy artist or the sale of his works. That changed after 2016 when one of the main venues for Western Art Week, the Townhouse Inn, was torn down to make way for a gas station/convenience store/casino.
For decades the Townhouse in had been the home of the March in Montana auction and dealer show. Outside of Russell Museum sponsored events sprinkled across the city, March in Montana was arguably the most anticipated event of Western Art Week. The auction typically sold more than 600 lots of art each year, both fine arts like paintings and bronzes, plus a wide selection of collectable western ephemera - Navajo blankets, Indian artifacts, cowboy collectables, antique firearms, and parade saddles.
The art show and auction moved to the Great Falls Elks Lodge in 2017. Although the lodge doesn't have the same capacity to host independent dealers that the Townhouse Inn did, the auction has continued to flourish. This year March in Montana’s two-day auction includes 776 lots for bid, with collections and collectors participating from across the U.S.
The Great Falls Elks Lodge is located at 500 1st Ave S. in Great Falls. March in Montana's auction takes place on both Friday, March 15 and Saturday March 16 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. The separate and unconnected dealer show coincides with the auction, open to everyone from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. both Friday and Saturday. For a complete list of Western Art Week see the Great Falls Tribune story published on March 8.
Included in this year’s offerings are oil paintings and bronzes from such western art luminaries as Olaf Seltzer, Ace Powell, Bob Scriver, and Earl Heikka. Also included are parade saddles, historic firearms, Native American beadwork, more than 80 weavings, and a nineteenth century buffalo hide shirt worn by the Crow Indian Chief, White Bull.
However, two of the most significant items for sale are on display in one of the seven galleries that encircle the auction space, that have been set aside for independent dealers. In the room occupied by Tierney Fine Art, owner Curtis Tierney hangs two Russell watercolors that rival nearly any others available for sale at this year’s Western Art Week.
“In the Wake of a Cree Hunting Party” depicts a line of mounted Cree women crossing the high plains of Montana. “Roping a White Wolf portrays two Montana cowboys at full gallop, lassos swinging above their heads, as they pursue a quickly retreating white wolf. Both paintings are expected to sell individually for at least $750,000 and could bring offers of more than $1 million.
“They’re two of the finest Russell painting available in Great Falls during Western Art Week,” Tierney commented. “It was a point in his career where Russell was starting to become a really good artist. He still had amazing inspiration for capturing the scenes that he saw firsthand out on the range.”
Tierney, who specializes blue-chip artists of the American west like Charlie Russell and Frederick Remington, has been selling works at March in Montana for the past 16 years. He described some of the techniques that Russell employed which make his works some of the most sought after in the art world.
“Russell would put a lot of detail into the foremost figure and would then feather out and soften the figures in the landscape … creating a wonderful depth-of-field which he had a great talent for,” Tierney said. “Russell’s roping scenes are among his most collected. Roping scenes, buffalo hunt scenes, cowboys on bucking horses - Russell had paintings of cowboys roping cattle, but he also had paintings of roping wolves, roping mountain lions, roping bears.”
Tierney is also selling paintings by famed western artist Joseph Henry Sharp, and two paintings by Philip R. Goodwin who was a contemporary artist and good friend of Charlie Russell. However, the centerpiece is two Russell watercolors painted in the late 1890s just as he was entering the height of his skills as an artist.
“When you find a Charlie Russell, you’re not only buying a painting. You’re buying a piece of our western American heritage,” the Bozeman gallery owner said. “There are not many paintings like this that become available in any given year, and these are really great examples of his work.”
“The March in Montana auction is so much fun for collectors,” Tierney commented. “There’s so much amazing material over here and its free and open to the public. Even people who are not going to buy anything come over, look at all the art every year and just appreciate it. The general public is encouraged to come over and look and be drawn in emotionally all these painting both in the dealer rooms and at the auction. It’s both people who come over just for the shear appreciation of art, and top collectors who are really trying to find that next wonderful gem for their collection.”
Nearly 30 years after the Great Falls Elks Lodge was forced to part with its own Russell masterpiece, the lodge is once again hosting Montana’s favorite western artist.
“Isn’t it ironic that Russell was inducted into the Elks Lodge in 1908 and here we are 100-plus years later exhibiting his work for sale in the same lodge,” Tierney said.
This article originally appeared on Great Falls Tribune: Western Art Week: CM Russell's Elks Club connection, and legacy
