Frederic Remington Art Museum

The Frederic Remington Art Museum is a place where one can almost feel the artist’s presence. The number one question asked by visitors is, "Did Remington live here?" The answer is no, but this is the place to know him best. The house that has been the center of the museum since its inception in 1923 is a place Remington surely visited on his many trips to Ogdensburg. In 1900 it was remodeled from its original 1810 appearance by Remington's friend George Hall, with rich quarter-sawn oak interiors where Remington would have felt quite at home. It was as Hall's guest that Eva Caten Remington and her sister, Emma Caten, lived here from 1915 through 1918. The lobby still takes visitors' breath away.

The depth and breadth of the museum's Remington holdings is unmatched. The great majority of items came directly from Eva Remington's 1918 estate. They include annotated scrapbooks, endless pages of notes, photographs - even the cigars that were in his pocket before he died. Much of this Eva Remington certainly retained for posterity. The artist's library is displayed on the second floor of the historic house with other Remington estate furniture. The visitor is treated to an exhibit of fine art from the Remington home in the room that was once George Hall's dining room. On the way to the art galleries, one can see Remington's easel, paintbrushes and sculpting stand, and also such diverse items as his hockey stick and his elk's tooth cuff-links.

So, though the artist never lived here, the scope of his possessions here, including his working tools; thousands of notes and sketches; the fact that his widow lived here in the house of his friend; and the contemporaneous aesthetic of the place compound to make one feel that this is where Remington is found. The collection of Remington's paintings, drawings and bronzes, of course, the most important thing we have, but it's the combination of all the disparate elements that lets you imagine Frederic Remington here, perhaps smoking cigars and drinking whiskey into the night with any member of his elite circle of friends.