NEW CHARLES M. RUSSELL BOOK LAUNCHED – PART 1: “Charles M. Russell’s Women: Reality, Convention, and Imagination” by Joan Carpenter Troccoli

The Charles M. Russell Museum in Great Falls, Montana has just published a stellar new book entitled Charles M. Russell: The Women in His Life and Art with an Introduction by Brian W. Dippie and contributions by Joan Carpenter Troccoli, Emily Crawford Wilson, Jennifer Bottomly-O’Looney and Thomas A. Petrie. At the recent opening of the Museum’s exhibition “CHARLES M. RUSSELL: THE WOMEN IN HIS LIFE AND ART” the authors were present to discuss the book and for a book signing.

The book contains four essays by the authors, and this review and following posts will provide thumbnail sketches of each of the author’s biographies as well as their essays.

Joan Carpenter Troccoli is the Guest Curator of the Museum’s new exhibition on the women in Charles Russell’s life and art, and she is the Founding Director of the Petrie Institute of Western American Art. She is also the editor of the book.

Joan Carpenter Troccoli and Tom Petrie

In Ms. Trocoli’s chapter 1 “Charles M. Russell’s Women: Reality, Convention, and Imagination” goes into some depth covering the white women in Russell’s life from his grandmother (entertained Charlie with stories of “her celebrated western family), his mother (encouraged him to “cultivate the arts”), girlfriend who left him and married someone else (she appeared in “his art well after their courtship was over”), Nancy Cooper (became his wife, model, and his life and business manager), and Josephine Trigg (neighbor, librarian and likely subject of artwork of a white woman).

Josephine Wright Tharp

One non-white woman besides Sacajawea is mentioned once in Troccoli’s chapter – Josephine Wright (a Blackfoot woman from whom “Russell learned first hand about Northern Plains culture”) (p. 23).

Troccoli expounds the thesis that Russell had little interest in depicting white women but was very interested in portraying Indian women. She states, “Truth be told, Russell was not very interested in portraying white women. . .” On the other hand, she notes, “(Russell) increasingly favored Indians as subjects. They were more often male than female, but even so, Russell’s representations of Indian women far exceed in both number and ambition his depictions of white women.”