Archives West Finding Aid

James Brownlee Rankin was born January 31, 1900, in Denver, Colorado, the son of Reverend James Doig Rankin and Daisy Meloy Rankin. In his college years, Rankin developed a great love for books. Later he also developed an interest in art, particularly western art. This avocation led him to begin the collection of books illustrated by western artists, notably Charles M. Russell and Frederic Remington.

By 1936 Rankin had developed a very strong interest in the work and life of Charles M. Russell. That summer, he decided to research and write a biography of the artist and produce an illustrated catalog of all of Russell's known works. This was his primary goal and the object of his free time until 1940.

Rankin took ads in national and regional newspapers as well as pertinent magazines. From this, he developed a wide range of contacts that had known Russell, knew of him, or owned works by the Montana artist. He made extensive trips to interview individuals and to catalog Russell's art.

Rankin moved to Pasadena, California, in 1939, to be closer to his father and to pursue his teaching and research interests. He married Josephine Crenshaw of New York City in 1940. He never lost his lifelong interest in Russell, but did not continue working on the biography/catalog after that year.

Ultimately he destroyed his manuscript after the publication of a Russell biography by a friend, who Rankin believed, had plagiarized much of his earlier work. The one piece Rankin did publish on Russell was a bibliography of published works illustrated by the artist which appeared in American Book Illustrations in 1938. James Brownlee Rankin died at San Bernardino, California, August 2, 1962.

Charles Marion Russell was born March 19, 1864, in St. Louis, Missouri, to Mary Elizabeth Mead (daughter of Edward Mead) and Charles Silas Russell. He had one sister, Susan Mead Russell (who married T.G. Portis) and brothers: Silas Bent, Edward, Guy, and Wolfert. Silas Bent Russell had a son and daughter, Austin and Isabel. Florence M.N. Russell was Charles M. Russell's stepmother.

At the age of sixteen, Russell’s parents sent him to Montana under the guardianship of a sheepherder from who he soon parted. Working for some time as a cowboy in the West, he continued to sketch, spending his summers on the open range and his winters in various frontier towns, where he often painted pictures in exchange for food or lodging. He sent the original of "Last of the 5000" to Louis Stadler of the Stadler and Kaufman partnership.

In 1896 Russell married Nancy Cooper in Ben Roberts' home at Cascade, Montana. Under her influence and direction he developed from an itinerant cowboy into an artist who painted pictures for a living. The Russell’s adopted a son, Jack Cooper Russell.

By 1920 Russell had achieved financial success and made frequent trips to New York, where he painted for such patrons as Malcomb MacKay and Phillip G. Cole. Russell seldom used models for his paintings or sculpture and took pride in the accuracy of his memory for the details depicted in his scenes of cowboy and Indian life in the West.

For more than a quarter of a century Russell produced works depicting the West as he had known it before the advent of barbed wire, the automobile, etc. He maintained a studio in Great Falls, Montana, and for a brief period in Pasadena, California. Charles M. Russell died October 24, 1926.

James W. Bollinger, William S. Hart, Harry Stanford, and Phil Weinard were among the collectors of works by Russell.