337 New Wealth for the Blackfeet

SOLD
Winning Bid Undisclosed
This item SOLD at 2017 Apr 08 @ 14:43UTC-7 : PDT/MST
Category Art
Auction Currency USD
Start Price NA
Estimated at 150,000.00 - 250,000.00 USD
New Wealth for the Blackfeet
Artist: Grelle, MartinDate of Birth: b. 1954
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 44 x 52 inches
Signed: Signed lower right/CA
Verso:

Of New Wealth for the Blackfeet, Martin Grelle writes: “The flag is a Fur Trade era flag carried by employees of the American Fur Company. The Blackfeet have the flag, but have also acquired the hat (typical of the fur trade), a trade gun, a small red trade blanket, a mule (with its pack), a packhorse (with its pack AND its colt). And quite likely a couple of the horses they’re riding as well, or at least some bridles. Maybe they traded for these things, maybe not... Odds probably favor ‘not’.” But what did happen to the mountain man? Was he killed by these Indians, as Grelle suggests? History tells us that mountain men and trappers could succumb to any of a number of things. Exposure. Disease. The madness that shadows loneliness. Did he just drop everything and head back, out, back East, back home? One thing is certain—it’s a windfall for these men, one that will stand them in good stead when they return to their camp. The day, the brilliance of the weather, the glory of the landscape, straightens out the question mark at the end of the unanswered and, ultimately, unanswerable question: what happened to the mountain man?