Endion (Remington's Home at New Rochelle) by Frederic Remington

About the Work

The Remingtons had lived in Brooklyn and Manhattan before purchasing a house in New Rochelle, New York, in 1889. Naming it Endion (pronounced ahn-dy-yon), a Chippewa word meaning "my home" or "place where I live," the couple resided here for nearly twenty years, before moving to Ridgefield, Connecticut.

Huguenots (French Protestants) fleeing religious persecution had established New Rochelle in 1688. Endion stood in the Huguenot Park neighborhood. In the nineteenth century, New Rochelle became a popular resort on Long Island Sound just outside of New York City. When the Remingtons arrived, it was a fashionable small city, which, according to the New York Times, was "proud of the fact that it was not commonplace or humdrum." Reinforcing this claim, the Times noted that New Rochelle contained many persons of wide reputation, with Frederic Remington being the first example named. The newspaper mentioned his "handsome" place, where he was building a "fine" studio. The architect-designed studio addition was more than fine; the artist boasted to his author friend Owen Wister that it was "Czar size." He told Wister that when it was finished he would be invited "to come over—throw your eye on the march of improvement and say 'this is a great thing for American art'."

Remington rendered this view of Endion a few months before leaving for a new home. He dates the work specifically—Sept. 15, 1908—yet, he was out West then. His diary shows that he actually made this study of Endion, for remembrance's sake, on October 15, 1908. His description of the weather matches the composition: "Warm—smoky autumn—the finest possible day." Painting outdoors in his Impressionist manner, Remington records without sentimentality the place he and his wife had spent, in his words, "the best days of our lives."