Wild West – June 2019

27

ART OF THE WEST

JUNE 2019 WILD WEST

in which De Yong paid visual tribute to Russell.

“The scenes with Jack Palance in that raised-entry

saloon are right out of a Charlie Russell painting,”

Reynolds explains.

Russell certainly helped De Yong, but De Yong

helped Russell, too. “De Yong allowed Russell to

become a teacher,” Wilson says. “By correcting his

work, painting alongside him, advising him on

matters of Western life and artistic enterprise and

technique, Russell was articulating and codifying his

own artistic practice. And by passing on his knowl-

edge to De Yong, Russell helped perpetuate and

grow his own legacy.”

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Top left: Costume design

was a passion with De

Yong, and his influence

is strong in this 1940

Gary Cooper movie.

Top right: A colorful

vaquero sports grizzly

saddle bags. Above:

A “Ben Holiday Coach”

the artist (that’s him)

handcrafted remains

on display at the Santa

Barbara Carriage and

Western Art Museum.

Western filmed in the area, became interested
in motion pictures and took off to Arizona for
more movie work. Then fate stepped in. A 1913
bout with cerebral meningitis left the 19-year-old
wholly deaf.
But De Yong didn’t let that stop him. Soon after
he struck up a correspondence with Russell, and in
1916 he moved to Great Falls to work in Russell’s
studio. Russell and De Yong used sign language to
communicate while painting or catching the latest
silent movies in town.
When Russell’s demands kept him from illus-
trating magazines and books, wife Nancy recom-
mended De Yong to the publishers. “He’s much
more of an illustrator than a fine artist,” Reynolds
says, adding it was De Yong’s talent as an illus-
trator that finally led him full circle—to stints as
a Hollywood designer and historical consultant.
In the wake of Russell’s death De Yong was liv-
ing in Santa Barbara, Calif., when director Cecil
B. DeMille hired him to work on the 1936 Gary
Cooper film The Plainsman. “They needed some-
one who could do set design, scenic design and
costume design who was authentic,” Reynolds
says. “DeMille was as big of an authenticity freak
as De Yong.”
By the time of his own death in 1975 De Yong
had rendered more than 1,500 costume illustra-
tions and worked on 20-plus films, including Union
Pacific (1939), North West Mounted Police (1940), Buf-
OPP falo Bill (1944), Red River (1948) and Shane (1953),

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