At the dawn of the American Century, an Eastern artist best known for his illustrations in the periodicals of the day defined national values through his romanticized images of the cowboy on the American frontier. Frederic Remington (1861-1909) created powerful images that were accepted as the distillation of the best of the American character, conveying a sense of strong individualism and identity embraced by President Theodore Roosevelt and millions of readers who encountered his art in the popular press.

Frederic Remington and the American Civil War: A Ghost Story, explores an unusual and significant aspect of the artist’s career: his ongoing fascination with the American Civil War. Well-known as a painter of the American West, Frederic Remington’s art refers back to the Civil War in compelling and unexpected ways. Though he rarely painted Civil War scenes, the war haunts his depictions, as reflected in his portrayals of cowboys and troopers. Just as the most famous novel about the West is called The Virginian, so Remington’s art, like the western literature of Owen Wister, examines the West through the lens of North and South. Guest curator and art historian Alexander Nemerov, Ph.D., of Yale University, investigates these connections for the first time in an exciting exhibition that promises to present this time-honored artist in an entirely new light.

The exhibition is sponsored by BerkshireBank. Exhibition-related programs for families and children are supported by the Neil and Jane Golub Foundation, Inc. & William and Estelle Golub Foundation, Inc., with additional support from Reynolds, Barnes & Hebb, Inc.