Frederic Remington 1861 - 1909

Smith and Wesson, Bangor Punta Company, Springfield, Massachusetts, 1902 (commissioned from the artist)

Cody, Wyoming, Whitney Gallery of Western Art, Special Exhibition, Loans and New Acquisitions, May-October 1970, no. 37
Cody, Wyoming, Whitney Gallery of Western Art, Remington Retrospective in Honor of Harold McCracken, May-October 1974

Scribner's Magazine, August 1902, illustrated p. 57
The Cosmopolitan, August 1902, illustrated
Peggy and Harold Samuels, Remington: The Complete Prints, New York, 1990, no. 78, illustrated p. 74
Peter H. Hassrick and Melissa J. Webster, Frederic Remington: A Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings, Watercolors and Drawings, vol. II, Cody, Wyoming, 1996, no. 2682, p. 764, illustrated

Good condition, lined; under UV: a few small scattered small spots of inpainting in the mountains and sky and next to the single man's right shoulder.
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Frederic Remington's Hands Off is a striking example of one of the artist's well-known works in black and white.  Painted in 1902, this painting and three others also from the Estate of Theodore J. Forstmann, including A Critical Moment (lot 37), With the Hounds (lot 39), and The Last Stand (lot 40), were commissioned from the artist by the renowned and leading American purveyor of firearms, Smith & Wesson Company. The images were used as advertisements in 1902 and 1903 to promote Smith & Wesson's augmented revolver, the .38 Military & Police model, best known as the Model 10.

In 1882, Remington launched his career as one of America's greatest illustrators with the sale of a drawing to Harper's Weekly, for whom he would become a staff artist in 1885. During these years, Remington also began selling his paintings and in 1905, New York's American Art Galleries hosted the artist's first solo exhibition featuring 30 drawings and paintings. Art historian Emily Neff writes, "When Remington held his first solo exhibition and sold his work in the early 1890s, the black-and-white oils met with more enthusiasm and commanded higher prices than his works in color. Two factors explain this trend: Remington's greater maturity, experience, and facility working with the illustrator's palette of black and white, and the familiarity of the black-and-whites to his viewing public, which was already accustomed to seeing his work en grisaille and understood his work in the context of reproduction rather than as paintings hung in fine-art exhibitions" (E. Neff, Frederic Remington-The Hogg Brothers Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, p.68).  Remington's grisaille works continued to bring him great acclaim for the remainder of his career and these views of Western life remain popular with collectors and Remington enthusiasts alike to this day.

In 1902 the Smith & Wesson Company called upon Remington's expertise to help promote and advertise their newest revolver. Beyond its extensive use by the U.S. military, the company was also proud of the pistol's celebrated reputation and association with famous figures and personalities of the American West. There seemed no better fit for promotion than the collaboration between the mystique of the Smith & Wesson brand and Remington's notoriety as the greatest creator of the most romantic visions of the American West.  The collaboration inspired the artist to produce four black and white images including Hands Off, portraying a rugged trapper taken by surprise by two Indians while attending to his sleigh dogs. The revolver is prominently displayed by the trapper attempting to guard the goods on his sleigh, and from the expressions on the Indians' faces, he successfully deters them from their mission.  The image appeared in both Scribner's Magazine and The Cosmopolitan in August 1902, with the tagline, "A Smith & Wesson inspires confidence to the hand that holds it, and respect from the unwelcome visitor" (Peggy and Harold Samuels, Remington: The Complete Prints, 1990, p. 74).  The second of the four commissioned images, A Critical Moment, illustrates a cavalry officer fallen from his horse, while an aggressive horned steer peers perilously over him. He bravely holds up his revolver in self-defense as a fellow officer comes to his aid.  This image was featured in Collier's Weekly in October 1902 and was produced as a limited print on heavy plate paper, measuring 14 by 15 inches, available for purchase for ten cents.  The two other Smith & Wesson commissioned works are equally compelling images: The Last Stand depicts a military shoot-out befitting its title, and was featured in the February 1902 issues of Harper's Weekly and The Saturday Evening Post. With the Hounds, also known as Coursing with the Greyhounds, is an intriguing image of greyhounds racing alongside a lone, snarling wolf with revolver-brandishing cavalry officers also in pursuit, featured in the December 1902 issue of Harper's Monthly.