Here’s the truth: if Charlie Russell hadn’t married Nancy Cooper, he would not have become the Russell we know as one of the most important, prized, and beloved painters and sculptors of the rapidly changing West. Had he remained a bachelor—like the lone wolf in some of his works—or married a less forceful, capable woman, he might have spent his life and career using his paintings to settle his bar bills at the Mint Saloon in Great Falls and giving them away to friends. If not for Nancy, Charlie might have been one of the many “might have beens” in the history of art. It was Nancy who saw that Russell’s market was in the East, where magazines offered public exposure, where arts clubs and organizations offered the opportunity to meet with and learn from other artists, and where galleries conferred prestige and attracted the attention of the captains of industry who would form Russell’s collector base. While Charlie worked, Nancy took care of the business and negotiated with clients. When Russell passed away in 1926, Nancy knew that she had to keep Russell in the public eye. Two books of stories that featured Russell’s works and illustrated letters—Trails Plowed Under and Good Medicine—were instant hits and served Nancy’s purposes well.
But Nancy labored over a third installment for many years, a book that would be more of a biography of her beloved Charlie, one that would tell the story of his life, and of their life together. Published for the first time anywhere, Back-Tracking in Memory is as close as we will come to the biography of Charlie Russell that Nancy Russell never quite finished before her own passing in 1940. Edited by noted Russell scholar Brian W. Dippie and collector/scholar Thomas A. Petrie, Back-Tracking in Memory collects Nancy Russell’s manuscript with other writings drawn from her archive, housed at the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa—the story of her first meeting with Charlie, is but one example.
Back-Tracking in Memory adds a crucial new chapter to the story of one of the most famous—and most Western—of Western artists. This is a book that no fan of Western art or library of the American West should be without.
Copies of Back-Tracking in Memory are now available at the Sue and Robert Karatz Museum Store at Western Spirit: Scottsdale’s Museum of the West or online.
Purchase your copy today!