Russell is known as the Cowboy Artist who saw it all and got it right. A rich kid from St. Louis, he left home in 1880 to join the big roundups in Montana, where he mixed with cowpunchers, Indians, preachers, and prostitutes. He memorized their stories and sketched their lives and, after the death of his rival Frederic Remington, became the foremost documentarian of the closing of the frontier. Before he was through, his masterpieces hung in America's finest art galleries and stateliest mansions. His paintings have appeared on three postage stamps, and his buffalo-skull logo still appears on every Montana license plate.