In the Wake of the Buffalo Runners by Charles M. Russell
Charles M. Russell | In the Wake of the Buffalo Runners | 1911 | Oil on canvas | Private Collection
About the Work
Indigenous Americans moving camp, as seen in the Sid Richardson Museum's 1895 painting Bringing up the Trail, was one of Russell's favorite themes
before the turn of the century. The artist revisits the theme in later years, and his affectionate account of domestic detail culminates with In the Wake of the Buffalo Runners, painted in the summer of 1911 at Bull Head Lodge, his summer home located in Lake McDonald, Montana. Against a
foreground cast deep in shadow, a woman bathed in the glow of late afternoon sunlight rises to her knees on her pony's back, gazing into the distance,
where men are giving chase to a buffalo herd. With one hand on the reins and the other resting on a strap that fastens a cradleboard to her back, she
appears as heroic as any of Russell's horseman.
