Image: public domain, courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
The Broncho Buster
This was Frederic Remington's first sculpture, and the first sculpture of a cowboy ever cast in bronze. A cowboy holds on tight as a wild horse rears up beneath him.
🎧 Audio guide available in the 3D museum
Did you know?
- Remington was first famous as an illustrator, and the idea came from his 1892 magazine drawing Pitching Broncho.
- He registered the copyright for the sculpture in October 1895.
- Early copies were sand-cast; after 1900 the Roman Bronze Works in New York cast them by the lost-wax method.
- This copy was cast in 1918; it is number 214, the last one recorded in the foundry's ledger.
- In 1898 Theodore Roosevelt's Rough Riders gave him a cast; Remington called it the greatest compliment he ever had.
- Look how the whole horse and rider balance on just the horse's two back hooves.
About the artist
Frederic Remington (1861–1909) was born in Canton, New York, traveled widely across the American West, and worked mainly in New York.
He became famous for paintings, illustrations and bronze sculptures of cowboys, soldiers and horses, above all The Broncho Buster.
As a young man he studied art at Yale, where he also played on the university football team.
More works
The BedroomVincent van Gogh, 1889
A Sunday on La Grande JatteGeorges Seurat, 1884–86
At the Moulin RougeHenri de Toulouse-Lautrec, 1892–95
The Basket of ApplesPaul Cézanne, c. 1893
Fishing in Spring, the Pont de Clichy (Asnières)Vincent van Gogh, 1887
Self-PortraitVincent van Gogh, 1889
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