Friends or Foes? (The Scout)

1902–05

A solitary Blackfoot Indian leans forward on his horse, gazing across a snowy landscape at the lights of a distant encampment. The figure’s pose, the horse’s breath, and the glimmering sky create an almost palpable stillness and tension—the rider has no way of knowing if he would be welcome at the camp. The painting’s somber mood reflects a shift in Remington’s many images of the West and its increasingly isolated Native American population, indicating nostalgia for a way of life he felt was disappearing.

Medium	oil on canvas
Dimensions	27 x 40 in. (68.6 x 101.6 cm) Frame: 37 5/8 × 50 1/2 × 3 in. (95.6 × 128.3 × 7.6 cm)
Object Number	1955.12
Acquisition	Acquired by Sterling and Francine Clark before 1955
Status	On View

Image Caption

Frederic Remington, Friends or Foes? (The Scout), 1902–05, oil on canvas. Clark Art Institute, 1955.12

Select Bibliography

New York: Knoedler Galleries.. Portrait of the Old West.. Oct. 20-Nov. 1, 1952.. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Exhibit Four: First Two Rooms. Exhibition catalogue. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1955. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Exhibit Four & Exhibit Seven. Exhibition catalogue. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1958. Oshkosh (WI): Paine Art Center and Arboretum.. Frederic Remington: A Retrospective Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture. Aug. 1-Sept. 24, 1967; Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Oct. 11-Nov. 12, 1967; Clark Art Institute, Dec. 2-31, 1967. Wildenstein and Co., New York.. How the West was Won: Paintings, Watercolors, Bronzes by Frederic Remington and Charles M. Russell. May 22-June 22, 1968.. 1968.. St. Louis Art Museum, St. Louis, Missouri.. Frederic Remington: The Masterworks. March 11-May 22, 1988; Buffalo Bill Historical Society, Cody, June 17-Sept. 5, 1988; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Oct. 15, 1988-Jan. 8, 1989; Metropolitan Museum, New York, Feb. 10-April 16, 1989. Cat. by Michael Edward Shapiro, Peter H. Haasrick, et al. Harold McCracken.. Portrait of the Old West.. New York: McGraw-Hill.. 1952..

Kingman, Eugene. "Painters of the Plains: The American West has Put its Stamp on Many Artists' Work." American Heritage 6, no. 1 (December 1954): 32–44.

Eliot, Alexander. Three Hundred Years of American Painting. New York: Time, Inc., 1957. . The Scout.. Glens Falls (NY): Finch, Pruyn & Co.. 1957.. Fuller, Edmund, and B. J. Kinnick. Adventures in American Literature. New York: Harcourt Brace and World, 1958. Jones, Thomas C. Shaping the Spirit of America: Articles from Harper's and Century Magazines Recalling Events and Times that Helped Determine the Present National Image of the United States of America. Chicago: J. G. Ferguson Publishing Co., 1964. Troop, Miriam Troop. American Artists in History. New York: Doubleday, 1966. William Greenleaf and Richard B. Morris.. U.S.A.: The History of a Nation. Chicago: Rand McNally.. 1969.. Harold McCracken.. The Frederic Remington Book: A Pictorial History of the West.. Garden City (NY): Doubleday & Co.. 1966.. Gregg, R. N. "Art of Frederic Remington." Connoisseur 165 (August 1967): 269–73. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1970. Shirley Glubok.. The Art of the Old West.. New York: Macmillan.. 1971.. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. List of Paintings in the Sterling & Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1972. Frank Getlein.. The Lure of the Great West.. Waukesha (WI): Country Beautiful.. 1973.. . . 24:1.. Montana, The Magazine of Western History.. (Jan. 1974).. Matthew Baigell.. The Western Art of Frederic Remington.. New York: Ballantine Books.. 1976.. Anonymous. Illustration. The Chronicle of the Horse 41, no. 32 (18 August 1978): back cover. Louis Chapin.. Great Masterpieces by Frederic Remington. An Artabras Book.. New York: Crown Publishers.. 1979.. Mathey, François. American Realism. Geneva: Skira Art Books, 1980. Mukherjee, Sushil. "Treasure of the Clark Museum." Berkshire Magazine (Winter 1982). Buscombe, Edward. "Painting the Legend: Frederic Remington and the Western." Cinema Journal 23, no. 4 (Summer 1984): 12–27. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1984. Sophia Craze.. Frederic Remington.. New York: Crescent Books.. 1989.. James K. Ballinger.. Frederic Remington.. New York: Harry N. Abrams.. 1989.. Donald Goddard.. American Painting.. Southport (CT): Hugh Lauter Levin Assoc.. 1990.. Conrads, Margaret C. American Paintings and Sculpture at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. New York: Hudson Hills Press, 1990. Kern, Steven, ed. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1992. William C. Ketchum, Jr.. Remington and Russell: Artists of the West.. Smithmark Publishers. 1997.. Santa Fe (NM): Gerald Peters Gallery.. Frederic Remington: The Years of Critical Acclaim.. Santa Fe (NM): Gerald Peters Gallery.. 1998.. Jack London.. The Plays of Jack London.. Forest Hills (NY): Ironweed Press.. 2000.. Neff, Emily Ballew. The Modern West: American Landscapes, 1890-1950. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston October 29, 2006-January 28, 2007; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, March 4-June 3, 2007. Yale University Press. 2006. Anderson, Nancy K. Frederic Remington: The Color of Night. National Gallery of Art, April 13- July 13, 2003; The Gilcrease Museum, August 10-November 9, 2003; The Denver Art Museum, December 13, 2003- March 14, 2004. Washington: National Gallery of Art with Princeton University Press. 2003. Conforti, Michael, et al. The Clark Brothers Collect: Impressionist and Early Modern Paintings. Exhibition catalogue. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute; New Haven: distributed by Yale University Press, 2006. Peter H. Hassrick & Melissa J. Webster.. Frederic Remington: A Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings, Watercolors, and Drawings.. Cody (WY): Buffalo Bill Historical Center.. 1996.. Allen, Brian T. "Sterling & Francine Clark Art Institute." American Art Review: Special edition, The Western Massachusetts Art Trail XVI, no. 3 (2004): 162-169. Ganz, James A. and Richard R. Brettell. Great French Paintings from the Clark: Barbizon through Impressionism. Exhibition catalogue. New York: Skira Rizzoli Publications; Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 2011.

Provenance

To Ledyard Cogswell, Sr., Albany(?), New York; to J. Townsend Lansing, Albany, New York; estate of J. Townsend Lansing; to Albany Institute of History and Art, 1920; to (John Levy Galleries, New York, and M. Knoedler & Co., New York, 1950); to Robert Sterling Clark, January 23, 1951.