Charles Marion Russell (1864–1926) was an artist of the Old American West who created more than two thousand paintings of cowboys, Indians, and landscapes set in the western United States and in Alberta, Canada. He became an advocate for Native Americans in the West, for instance supporting the bid by landless Chippewa to have a reservation established for them in Montana.
This picture is a 1908 oil-on-canvas painting by Russell, entitled Smoke of a .45, depicting an action-packed scene in a dry, dusty landscape. The work is now in the collection of the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, Texas.Painting credit: Charles Marion Russell