The Entrepreneur

Dressed like an American Diaghilev or Prince of Wales, the artist Frederic Remington (1861-1909) here wears the clothing of manipulative power, a sleek style quite correctly remote from the actual product he marketed. Remington helped create the romance of the West, elevating Cody’s cowboy-and-lndian melodrama into enduring art. He showed how the Western myth] could be regenerated by Eastern talent, but instead of dressing the part, he let his pictures and sculpture carry the message. Here he sports the rich trappings of lateVictorian success: single-breasted jacket and striped trousers, walking stick and bowler, finished off with a cigarette.