The Lone Wolf, 1900. Charles M. Russell.
Oil on Canvas, 34 x 45 inches. Charles M. Russell Museum, Donated by J.M. Hoover in memory of Harold and Grace Hoover.
Originally part of the famous collection in Bill Rance's Silver Dollar Saloon (one of Russell's favorite hangouts in Great Falls), this painting and Monarch of the Forest, which hangs nearby, were displayed for years as a pair. The First National Bank of Great Falls bought the pair after the saloon was closed during Prohibition and eventually split the pair up, giving The Lone Wolf to banker Harold Hoover, whose son Jack later donated it to the C.M. Russell Museum.
The Lone Wolf depicts a fierce, solitary animal of the Judith Basin. Once common on the Northern Plains, wolves were universally hated by cattlemen and settlers, who hunted them to the brink of extinction by the 1920s. Wolves have an inevitable presence in Russell's western wilderness, and he initially depicts them as evil predators. However, in this work, he demonstrates a change of heart, presenting his subject with majesty and dignity. Given Russell's penchant for painting thematically related works, the pair likely represents the cycle of nature codified here as "predator and prey," both necessary to maintaining balance in the natural world, a balance of which Russell would have been acutely aware in the early 1900s.
