CHARLES MARION RUSSELL | UNCLE JIMMY OWENS

Walter Reed Bimson, Phoenix, Arizona

Valley National Bank of Arizona

Acquired by the present owner from the above, 2004

According to Charles Marion Russell scholar Fred Renner, the present work was one of several illustrations Russell executed to accompany "Uncle Jim's Yarn: The Indian Story," part one of Stewart E. White's "Arizona Nights," a series of stories published in the January 1906 issue of McClure's Magazine. Russell drew inspiration for Uncle Jimmy Owens from the following passage: "A hawk-faced old man with a long white beard and long white hair rode out from the cottonwoods. He had on a battered broad hat abnormally high of crown, carried across his saddle a heavy 'eight square' rifle, and was followed by a half-dozen lolloping hounds." Ultimately, the publisher never used Uncle Jimmy Owens and it was not reproduced until after Russell's death.