ASA “ACE” POWELL (1912-1978), Untitled Blackfeet encampment at twilight, oil on canvas 5”x7”, monogrammed lower left.

Ace Powell is the direct successor to the Charlie Russell/O.C. Seltzer tradition of Montana western painting. The son of a cowboy and stable boss, guide and packer in Glacier National Park, he was raised on the south end of Lake McDonald, and was a working wrangler by the age of ten. He went to high school in Browning, MT., location of the Blackfeet Reservation, and attended Montana State University in Bozeman and also worked as a cowboy breaking and wrangling horses. As a boy, he spent many hours watching Charlie Russell painting in the Bull’s Head Lodge on Lake Mcdonald. In 1938, after a few private art lessons, he became a self-taught artist sketching and painting what he knew best - the cowboy and the indian and early genre of northwest Montana. He was an important catalyst in the development of the western art community in Kalispell and the Flathead Valley

CHARLES CRAIG, Pikes Peak Indian Painter (1849-1931)  “Indians on the Trail,”
Oil on canvas 18 1/2x26,” signed Charles Craig lower right, ca. 1895, ex-Kennedy
Galleries, NY. SOLD

 A highly important art/ historical document of the early Colorado frontier: Anton Schonborn, German-American, died 1871,  attr.,“Fort Sedgwick, Colorado Territory,  View from the Southeast,” 18 October 1970,  field sketch,  ink and wash on tan  linen textured paper,   6 3/8” x 9 3/8” sight; overall sheet dimensions 9”x 10 3/4.”; dated by the artist in the lower right corner and titled in the lower center margin in Roman script.  Fort Sedgwick, occupied by the U.S.Army from 1864 to 1871, was a significant military outpost in the far northeastern corner of Colorado in the frontier era. The post played a pivotal role in the security of the stage lines and emigrant wagon trains, the construction of the transcontinental railroad and the construction and maintenance of the telegraph lines, as well as in the final conflicts with the warring Cheyennes and Arapahoes. For nearly seven years the Fort guarded a large portion of the Overland Trail. Soldiers of the fort protected thousands of travelers, helped move mail and supplies and fought Indians, and upwards of 100 died there in the line of duty. Fort Sedgwick was located about a mile west of the original site of Julesburg Colorado and a mile and a half due south of the present day hamlet of Ovid, Colorado, approximately 500 yards south of the south bank of the South Platte River. At its peak, the fort was home to approximately six hundred troops and covered about forty acres. Nothing remains of Fort Sedgwick. SOLD