The Bronco Buster
Modeled 1895, cast 1899
Medium
Bronze with brown patina
Dimensions
60 × 54.7 × 34.5 cm (23 5/8 × 21 9/16 × 13 5/8 in.)
Classification
sculpture
Department
Arts of the Americas
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
97916
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
A technical achievement in bronze, this composition of a cowboy attempting to tame a horse portrays an idea of the Western United States in dramatic and violent terms: white settler-colonialists in the act of subduing nature and flesh. As a painter and illustrator, Frederic Remington garnered success by crafting mythic, romanticized views of frontier life; The Bronco Buster was his first attempt to do so in sculpture. For white audiences living east of the Mississippi River at the turn of the 20...
About the Artist
Frederic Remington · 1861–1909
Frederic Remington (1861–1909) was an American painter, sculptor, and illustrator who became the preeminent visual chronicler of the American West. Born in Canton, New York, he studied briefly at the Yale School of the Fine Arts and the Art Students League of New York before making his first trip west in 1881, where he found the subject matter that would define his career. Remington's paintings a...