Frederic Remington was born in 1861 in Canton, New York. He attended military schools as a child, and later enrolled at Yale University in 1878 where he studied drawing at the School of Fine Arts. His formal artistic education was later continued at the Art Student’s League in New York. Remington first aspired to be a painter, and documented his encounters with and observations of Western settlers, Native Americans, and man’s relationship to wild and uncivilized animals after his first trip to the Montana Territory in 1881.

Remington turned his attention towards sculpting after receiving instruction from Frederick W. Ruckstull. Broncho Buster was his first and most iconic sculpture. The United States Copyright Office copyrighted the design in the same year as its production. The celebrated bronze captures the perilous scene of a rugged cowboy breaking a wild, rearing horse. With one hand, he grips the mane and reigns, the other free hand flung behind for balance. Remington understood the permanence and longevity of his bronze sculptures, stating, “My oils will all get old and watery…my watercolors will fade–but I am to endure in bronze…I am modeling–I find I do well–I am doing a cowboy on a bucking bronco and I am going to rattle down through the ages.”