186

VERSO
Label, C. M. Russell Museum, Great Falls, Montana
Label, Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, Canyon, Texas

Crest of the Ridge, Grizzly will be included in Michael R. Grauer’s forthcoming W. Herbert Dunton Catalogue Raisonné.

According to Dunton biographer Julie Schimmel, “In Dunton’s wildlife art, the one subject that always dominated the picture space was the bear. The bear was a subject dear to Dunton since boyhood, as he described in a manuscript he prepared on this animal, apparently in the 1930s: ‘Bear! How my heart leaped and my pulse quickened as I sat, motionless and agape, drinking in those weird tales of an ancient past! For, to me, a bear seemed to belong to those bygone years of the screaming panther and skulking Indian with his war whoop and bloody tomahawk. In my childish imagination I visioned, in the weaving flames of the fire, a vast and unbroken wilderness, solitude so dense, so foreboding, so limitless that only the brave dare penetrate.’”

PROVENANCE
Private collection, Carmel, California

EXHIBITED
W. Herbert Dunton, C. M. Russell Museum, Great Falls, Montana, 1989
W. Herbert Dunton: A Retrospective, Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, Canyon, Texas, 1991

Condition ReportSurface is in excellent condition. Several specks of inpainting in upper-right corner.

Important Notice: Statements of condition are provided as a service to potential bidders; such statements are educated opinions and should not be regarded as facts. The Coeur d’Alene Art Auction has no responsibility for any errors or omissions.