Von Schmidt's Here Fell Custer

[Mike Powell]

I've been trying to locate a print for sale without success. But, I just learned the original is on display at the Ablah Library, Wichita State University, Wichita, KS. So there is that.

[quincannon]

I think the von Schmidt is the best of all depictions of the battle. I am not sure who owns it but I think that about seven or eight years ago it was in a museum in Wyoming.

He did a number of paintings that were used to illustrate the Bellah stories in the Saturday Evening Post in the late 40'd, early 50's as well. His Fetterman Massacre picture used to illustrate Massacre, from which Fort Apache is adapted is one I think you would like as well, remembering your interest in the Fetterman site.

[Mike Powell]

Harold von Schmidt, the father, was the illustrator for the Saturday Evening Post articles, also painted Battle Of The Hundred Slain (Fetterman Massacre). Images of that work are hard to come by on the interweb and confusing. This site identifies the piece, the second illustration on the page, and I believe it is probably correct as it does appear a winter scene.

coffeewithken.blogspot.com/2011/06/wounded-knee-part-i-closing-frontier.html

The father also did a LBH illustration

www.encore-editions.com/harold-von-schmidt-western-americana-painting-custers-last-stand-1950

Some may find it implausible, but I like the composition.

Eric von Schmidt, the son, is the creator of Here Fell Custer, the print I missed out on and the work which Wichita State University claims to hold. Though this below site appears to still offer the print, it is defunct in that regard. If you nose around there you'll see the son's Alamo piece and an illustration identified as the father's Fetterman Massacre work but it appears far to warm a setting.

vonsworks.com/index.html

[quincannon]

The von Schmidt I was referring to was contained in one of those coffee table books called the Western Art of Harold von Schmidt, and I do not think it is the hundred slain picture in the link. I can't lay my hands on it at the moment because my basement library is in shall we say a state of flux, although a state of flush would be more accurate. I remember it as a small close up grouping of soldiers much like the surrounded and about to get the axe scene from Fort Apache. It could be a close up extraction of the center of the hundred slain, but I don't think so.

H. von Schmidt's Custer's Last Stand was used for the Park Service Battlefield Booklet in outline form. Don't know if they even print them anymore, but my Dad got a copy from the Government Printing Office in DC and gave it to me when I was eight or nine, and at the same time he gave me a copy of Fahey's 1941 Two Ocean Fleet Ships and Aircraft starting two lifelong interests for me.

[dale]

I have one! I've posted a photo of it in a new thread and my name is Dale Barker. Looking to sell it!