Book Highlights Russell’s Illustrated Letters
by Steve Smith
On unfortunate casualty of the digital age is the old longhand letter. Sure, these hand scrawled missives are still around, but these days people will usually opt for email given the chance. Is our world the better for it?
Not if you had a pen pal like the great painter of the American West Charles Russell, who would include elaborate illustrations in letters to his closest friends.
Now a new book published by the Amon Carter Museum, The 100 Best Illustrated Letters of Charles M. Russell, edited by Russell authority Brian Dippie and published by the Carter, brings together for the first time these letters in book form.
I’m not even a huge fan of cowboy art, but the virtuosity of these letters is really impossible to ignore. They’re just beautiful and brilliant.
The 9½ x 11 inch, 216-page book includes 193 color reproductions of Russell’s letters, a removable “to scale†letter and envelope replica, and a foreword — written in 1925 — by the Russell himself. The book sells for $50 and is available at the Amon Carter Museum Store and online.
Tags: Amon Carter Museum, Charles Russell
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