The Black Bean Incident According To Remington
Frederic Remington is known for his depictions of the American West and the people who gave it life. At first, the New Yorker aspired to become one of the archetypal characters he would later render in ink and paint. Perhaps this was because he was restless like so many others who moved out west to reinvent themselves.
At home, a young Remington had dropped out of college and held several short-lived odd jobs. In Montana and Kansas City, he tried his hand at ranching, saloon-keeping and retail.
On all counts, he failed.
Back in New York, desperate for a way to keep his home and wife, Remington threw himself into art. He'd dabbled before but now he had to stand on business. By the age of twenty-five, he was being paid to travel the West and draw what he saw.
Remington's West was the Old West, unfettered by fences and barbed wire. As the Old West he knew faded away, the artist looked southward for inspiration. He traveled to Florida, Texas and Mexico. In 1896, he found himself in San Antonio in conversation with Rip Ford.
What resulted from his conversation with the aged Texas Ranger was a chapter in his 1898 book, Crooked Trails, and an unusual painting. It was unusual in that it depicted a scene that Remington didn't himself witness: the Black Bean Episode.
Your eye will be drawn to the haggard Texian, drawing his bean as armed and barefoot guards look on. But look beyond that and you'll find the other prisoners awaiting their turn at the legume roulette table. Some stare ahead stoically, two chat nervously, another sits slumped at the end of the line.
It's a moody rendition of a dark day in Texas history. Get ready to tell the story of the Mier Expedition and the Black Bean Episode. Visitors will see this and ask.
THE BONUS PRINT: An 1890 history of San Antonio contains an illustration that I love and thought you might, too. It's a series of cowboy vignettes made to look like a paper collage. My favorite detail is the six-shooter barrel poking through the paper. In the 1890 text, it illustrates excerpts from the memoirs of Mary Maverick, whose surname is synonymous with the open range. I'll include one with your Remington print.
Physical Details
- 9 by 12 inches
- On heavyweight fine-art paper
- Unique Remington subject matter
- Limited to 254 hand-numbered copies
This is a high quality fine-art print.
The paper is acid free, cold press cotton watercolor with an elegant lightly textured finish. This surface allows the inks to 'bite', reproducing the shading and tonality of the original map vividly, beautifully, and exactly.
The inks are guaranteed color-fast for 80 years, which means you won't need to lay out the extra money for UV glass. You can hang your print in direct sun and it will be just as bright when passed on to the next generation it is the day it ships.
