The Elk, 1900. Charles M. Russell.
Oil on Canvas, 32 1/2 x 45 1/2 inches. Charles M. Russell Museum, Gift of First National Bank, Great Falls, Montana.
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 The Lone Wolf, were displayed 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 giving The Lone Wolf to banker Harold Hoover, whose son Jack later donated it to the Russell Museum. Monarch of the Forest remained in the bank collection until the bank donated it to the Russell Museum in 1957. Given Russell's penchant for painting thematically related works, the pair likely represent the cycle of nature codified here as "predator and prey," both necessary to maintaining balance in the natural world -- balance of which Russell would have been acutely aware in the early 1900s.
