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Olaf Carl Seltzer (1877-1957) considered a transition painter between those of the Old West such as Remington and Russell to a later generation that painted only myth and imaginative work, he arrived in Great Falls, Montana in 1897, at the age of nineteen.
He had been
born in Copenhagen and at age 12 began the study of art at the
Technical Institute there. When his father died, his mother emigrated
to Great Falls, Montana, and he worked as a cowboy and then as a
machinist for the Great Northern Railway, often sketching the landscape
in his spare time.
In Great
Falls, where he lived the remainder of his life, he met Charles
Russell, and the two became close friends. Russell critiqued his art
and gave him a lot of advice.
By
1901, Seltzer was working in oils confidently and had become committed
to wildlife painting, gaining much of his knowledge from books. By
1921, he was a full-time painter and in 1926 moved to New York City to
help Russell complete some of his commissions.
He
created over 2500 works of art during his lifetime including a series
of miniatures of Montana history commissioned by Philip Cole, a wealthy
collector. The project nearly ruined Seltzer's eyesight, and he had to
complete the series by using a magnifying glass.
Biographical information from the archives of AskART.com
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