Buffalo Bill Cody With Children (Date Unknown)

It is rare that we look at photos here at The Jade Sphinx, but this photo has always touched me; so much so that a copy hangs on the wall over my desk.  It is of frontiersman, scout, Pony Express Rider and showman William Frederick “Buffalo Bill” Cody (1846-1917) in a tent on the grounds of his Wild West Show, telling yarns to his little pards.

By all reports, Cody was a lovely man.  He never refused an old friend, a hard luck story, or a child.  Cody was extremely open-handed, friendly and willing to take care of others (except, perhaps, his wife, Louisa). 

You may remember that we have previously covered the story of cowboy artist Daniel Cody Muller (1889-1976), who was born in Choteau, Montana.  Muller’s father was killed by a horse when the artist was nine years old, and he was soon after adopted by Buffalo Bill.  In his memoir, Muller writes of the 18 years he spent with Cody and of his time on both the Cody ranch and working the Wild West shows.  The Cody in Muller’s memoir is a warm-hearted man of deep compassion and sympathy.  Muller would not be Cody’s only unofficially-adopted child: he also raised Johnny Baker (1869-1931), a sharpshooter with the Wild West, as his own son, and his love for children was nearly legendary.  Indeed, in a tumultuous life of adventure, fame and cowboy-high-spirits, the sole tragedy of Cody’s life seems to be the loss of his son, Kit Carson Cody (1870-1876) to scarlet fever.

To get a flavor of the real man, there is a story that during the 1915 season, when Cody no longer owned the Wild West and was working for the Sells-Floto circus, the show was menaced by a flash flood in Fort Madison, Iowa.  Most of the show’s four hundred crew fled the scene, leaving the aged and infirm Buffalo Bill to rescue women and children with the help of five crewmembers.  Also while working for Sells-Floto, he would later grow enraged when he learned that executives had advertised a twenty-five cent admission fee and charged fifty cents at the door.  Not long after, Cody pulled his gun on the owners and demanded out of his contract.

In more than 15 years of reading obsessively about the Old West, there are only two figures who I desperately wished to have met: cowboy artist Charlie Russell (1864-1926) and Cody.  And when I picture him in my mind’s eye, it is more often in photos like the above rather than imagining him in his more perilous endeavors.

Though today’s photo was obviously staged, look at the avuncular Cody in full Wild West regalia, head slightly bowed so the sun catches his oversized Stetson and glistening white beard.  The camera catches him mid-story, holding what appears to be a piece of Native American embroidery.  Though the little girls are dressed in white and organdy pinafores, things are rough in the back area of the Wild West Show.  This is a place for play and fun and myth.  As usual, Bill is making time for everyone.

I cannot help but think of later photos of other Western Icons surrounded by children.  A quick search on the Internet would yield photos of Tom Mix, Gene Autry, Roy Rogers and Hopalong Cassidy surrounded by children – but, as usual, Cody got there first.  I believe that it was he that created and fostered the myth of the Western Hero as the friend of childhood, a trope that has been with us for over 100 years.

Take a moment and imagine ourselves back there.  We’ve seen the Wild West (or are about to), and sneak behind to the performer’s tents.  There is the great man himself, impossibly tall and romantic in his colorful western clothes.  He beckons us over and we sit, while he unfolds a tale of Western Adventure, of days gone by and pioneer adventure.  We listen as he talks, his aged voice rich and dramatic, and the whole pageantry of the West opens before us.  And we know that once that great voice and great heart are stilled, the West will really be gone forever.

Christmas at the Line Camp by Charles Russell

I had so much fun thinking about Dan Muller and Buffalo Bill Cody at Christmas yesterday that I decided to venture West again for today’s post. 

We have written about self-proclaimed ‘cowboy artist’ Charles Russell (1864-1926) before.  Reading his letters and diary snippets, it is amazing to find how wonderfully boyish and enthusiastic Russell was in person.  Russell never fully grew-up and he often approached his life, like his art, with a child-like sense of wonder.

So it comes as no surprise that Russell loved the Christmas season.  He would often retreat into his studio weeks before the holiday, designing his Christmas card(s), writing letters to close friends and oft-times painting a holiday-themed picture.  One Christmas painting showcases Russell’s most whimsical side: a cowpuncher riding a storm at night and seeing, faint in the distance, Santa Claus and his sleigh.

The picture we are looking at today is Christmas at the Line Camp, painted in watercolor in 1904, and currently in the Amon Carter Museum in Forth Worth, Texas. 

Line Camp is painted with a true minimalist’s touch.  The dominant color is white, of course, but Russell’s mastery of composition and gesture underscore the joviality of the scene.  While white often is the color most associated with death or emptiness, here Russell manages to imbue a mostly white composition with warmth, friendliness and high cowboy spirits.  (And more than a touch of puckish humor – the horns mounted over the front door are located directly over the head of one of the figures – perhaps the first time someone was captured in a picture with ‘horns.’)

Winter was a particularly treacherous season for the cowboy.  The work remained hard, and was often made more difficult by dangerous weather conditions.  Not as many men were needed during the winter months, and it was not uncommon for a pair of saddlehands to hole up in a cabin on the outskirts of the range, overlooking cattle.  These hands were equipped with winter horses that could support a rider and, if necessary, a weakened or frozen calf. 

In this painting, two riders from the home ranch have ridden through the rough Christmas weather to greet the two cowboys stationed in the cabin.  They bring the makings of a festive holiday meal, a freshly killed pronghorn, along with high spirits.  The two saddlehands in the cabin emerge, one with hands in his pockets, the other slightly hunched.  Part of Russell’s genius is demonstrated in these poses – the two figures are clearly ‘awakening’ by their pose and gestures, while the raised hat and highly held reins of the other figures connote energy, life and good humor.

A veteran cowboy himself, Russell pays close attention to the details.  The lead rider wears a coat of canvas lined with wool fleece (standard issue in the winter for westerners) and heavy chaps to keep out the cold.  The outer walls of the cabin are lined with wolf skins, probably taken from wolves threatening the heard, to help insulate them from the cold.  (And look at stream coming from the nostrils of the horses – it is clearly very, very cold outside.)

Russell keeps his sky neutral, maintaining focus on his people and their surroundings.  Bits of dead scrub emerge from the frozen earth, but the men are very much alive and very much attuned to holiday jollity.

Russell and his wife spent most of their winters in California starting in the 1920s, but the Christmas winter scenes of the American West were a potent part of his memory.  On a Christmas card written weeks before his death, Charlie wrote, "Heres hoping the worst end of your trail is behind you / That Dad Time be your friend from here to the end/And sickness nor sorrow dont find you."

Dan Muller, Cowboy Artist

I often find myself pulling down familiar books during the Christmas season.  Some, like the Christmas novels of Charles Dickens, are about the holiday itself.  Others, like the superb novel Monte Walsh (1963) by Jack Schaefer, have a Christmas-themed chapter that I find irresistible.

In the latter group I include My Life With Buffalo Bill by the artist Dan Muller.  Muller has a somewhat unique place in both Western American art and Buffalo Bill studies because his autobiography has met with controversy since its publication in 1948.

Let’s deal with the controversy first.  Daniel Cody Muller (1889-1976) was born in Choteau, Montana.  Muller’s father was killed by a horse when the artist was nine years old, and he was adopted by the famous frontiersman and showman, Col. William Frederick “Buffalo Bill” Cody.  In his memoir (one of several books written by Muller), he writes of the 18 years he spent with Cody and of his time on both the Cody ranch and working the Wild West shows.

Muller records meeting cowboy artist Charles Russell in 1900, and that his art was influenced by Russell.  He served in World War I, breaking horses for the army, and later worked as both an artist and a ranch-hand.  (In My Life With Buffalo Bill, he ruefully remarks that he has had more success as a cowboy than an artist.)

Muller painted three 100-foot murals for the Travel and Transport exhibit of the Century of Progress Chicago World’s Fair, and spent the rest of his artistic career illustrating books and magazine covers, and painting as well.

The controversy of all this springs from the fact that there is very little documentation about Muller’s life with Cody, other than his own word.  Cody scholars are divided on whether the events happened as described by Muller, or whether Muller was mildly acquainted with Cody and that his powers of invention did not begin and end with graphic art alone.

As someone who has spent the better part of the last 15 years reading about Buffalo Bill Cody, I think that much of Muller's book has the ring of truth.  While he gets the occasional fact wrong, Muller almost always seems to get the emotional tenor of the man correct.  Cody was open-handed, warm-hearted, an easy touch for any friend in need, and a man of deep compassion and sympathy.  Muller would not be his only unofficially-adopted child: Cody also raised Johnny Baker, a sharpshooter with the Wild West, as his own son, and his love for children was nearly legendary.

Muller describes a Christmas morning at the Cody ranch: My presents were first because they were the last added to the pile.  Aunt Louisa [Cody’s wife] kissed me when she took off the rough wrapping paper and saw the picture of Irma [Cody’s daughter] I’d drawn for her.  Irma, when she opened hers and found the picture of the young man who had hung around the most just before she’d gone off to school, laughed and laughed and laughed.  “Dan, you old innocent, you,” she said.  “I haven’t even written that young man.  But now I see his picture I think I will.”

And Uncle Bill took his picture – it was as big as I could make it – and stood it up on the mantle.  “Why, Dan, that sure is scrumptious,” he said, grinning under his moustache.  “There’s your Pa, and the Mormon in the tree, and there, can yuh believe it, is me.  ‘Course I was younger ‘n that in those days.  But it sure ‘nough is me.  Look here,” he urged May, “Dan sure ‘nough got a good likeness!”

May [Cody’s sister] looked.  She didn’t sniff, but she looked like she wanted to.  “It’s pretty crude,” she said.

“Well, he didn’t have much t’work with, May,” Uncle Bill said.  “It’ll be different now.  Wait a minute, Dan, ‘til I find something here.”  He fished around in the pile and came up with a great big package.  “There, now, Dan, yuh’ll have all the fittin’s for drawin’.”

I tore off the wrapping in a hurry.  Inside was paper, great big sheets of paper much finer than the art paper they gave us to use in school.  Uncle Bill dug around some more and fished out two other packages.  “An’ here’s some more for yuh, Dan.”

My eyes got big.  More than one present for me.  I got the wrapping off in a hurry, you bet.  Inside were pencils of different kinds, a lot of crayons, some water colors, even some tubes – I later found they were oil paints – and lots of brushes!

I didn’t pay much attention to what other people were getting.  I just sat and handled those paints and brushes, thinking what pictures I could make with all those things to make them with!

Then Uncle Bill said loudly, “Dan, here’s something more for yuh.”

It was a great big package at the very bottom of the pile.  Uncle Bill spread his two arms wide to pick it up, and set it down in front of me.

“Yuh can’t always be makin’ pictures,” he said.  “Here’s somethin’ for yuh t’have some fun with, boy.”

There was an awful lot of wrapping paper around it.  I tore it away in great strips.  And then I saw what it was – a big red-painted wagon.

“Come spring,” Uncle Bill said, his eyes smiling along with his mouth, “yuh c’n start trainin’ that ol’ billygoat t’harness.”

Gosh!  What a Christmas!

There’s nothing in that Christmas morning description inconsistent with the Colonel Buffalo Bill Cody known and loved by many.

As for his art, Muller was a talented draftsman and a painter with a keen eye for composition.  Muller had a true gift in his depiction of horses, and managed to draw and paint pictures where rider and horse looked like a single connected unit, rather than poorly fitted-together components of different works. 

The Christmas card above comes from the Thomas Sica collection.  It was addressed to Buck Burshears, founder of the Koshare Indian Museum.  It amply demonstrates Muller’s deft touch and pleasantly illustrative style.

Collectors of Western art, unless they have very deep pockets indeed, can no longer acquire a Remington or a Russell.  However, there are many western artists of the second rank who are eminently collectible, and few have as interesting a back story as Dan Muller.  People interested in Muller should visit Tom Sica’s Web site, which is a treasure-trove of images and information.  It can be found here at: http://www.tomsica.com/index.html.