Edgar S. Paxson

born Orchard Park, New York, 1852; died Missoula, Montana, 1919

BiographyBorn in East Hamburg, New York, in 1852, Edgar S. Paxson never received formal artistic training. Instead, he attended the Friend’s Institute School before going to work as a carriage and sign painter for his father, who was a carriage builder. Paxson set out west in 1875 and arrived in Deer Lodge, Montana, one year after the Battle of Little Big Horn in 1877. There he worked as a sign and scenery painter until moving to Butte in 1881. In Butte he continued his commercial work but also set up a studio and began painting Native American portraits and historical subjects. He completed his best known painting, Custer’s Last Stand, in 1899. Paxson had spent years gathering information for the colossal work, interviewing Native Americans and US soldiers who had been near the battle. He moved to Missoula in 1906, where he lived until his death in 1919. He was commissioned to paint six historical scenes for the Montana State Capitol in 1911 and eight more history paintings for the Missoula County Courthouse in 1912.

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