This little known painting, a romantic depiction of a solitary Indian playing a flute in the moonlight, is a departure from Remington's usual dramatic and sometimes tragic portrayal of Indians as warriors or hunters. This nocturne, with its thinly painted blue tones of quiet, night light is not sentimental or fraught with emotion, but dignified, plainly elegant in contrast with the mysterious gloom of the forest and the cold darkness masterfully painted in his other night scenes like the Luckless Hunter or Scare in A Pack Train. It is without question that Remington was the master of the nocturne. He knew how the light of the moon and stars is diffused and how it magically envelopes the landscape. He developed a firmer grasp of the whole problem of illumination in the nocturnes - veracious and beautiful, and very original. With his fusion of substance and technique, he lyrically portrayed the dream of the past.

While influenced by American Impressionists such as Twachtman, Hassam, Reid, and others, Remington worked out an impressionism of his own, combining the impressionist idiom with the narrative tradition. His success with the nocturnes influenced the way he perceived and painted daylight as well. His mastery of diffused, shimmering moonlight as well as dazzling, scorching sunlight is proof of Remington's gift as a painter. The spontaneity and vitality of his techniques enabled Remington to complete The Love Call in a single session. In his diary, the July 6 entry reads "I worked to great advantage - the color vibrated for me. Finished The Love Call in one sitting got a scheme on Outlier and pulled The Buffalo Runners into harmony …" Certainly Remington's last works were considered by most of his contemporaries to be his greatest accomplishments.

On December 4, 1909 his last show opened at Knoedler's in New York to a large crowd. There were 17 Westerns and 6 small landscapes. He sold six paintings that night, among them The Love Call (to Mrs. Paine of Boston). The show was a complete success from every standpoint. Among the glowing critical reviews, perhaps this one describes best the attitude and recognition he sought for so long from the art world:

It must be extremely trying for those commentators on pictorial art who always insisted this distinguished artist was only an 'illustrator' and decried his ability to paint, to visit such an exhibition as the present one. For by this time they must be impressed with the facts that Remington's work is at once splendid in its technique, epic in its imaginative qualities, and historically important in its permanent contributions to the records of the most romantic epoch in the making of the West. All this has been said before, but it is worthy of repetition many times that American history, so far as it is concerned with the conquest of the plains and the Indian, will be made much more vivid to the youths of the future through Remington's canvasses and drawings than through the printed page, no matter who the author. (And of the works themselves, the critic adds)…They are mostly dramatic, or tragic, episodes of the fight between white man and aborigine, but in one instance the artist strikes a gentler note in the lyrical episode he styles The Love Call.

As Remington himself says in his diary " The art critics have all come down - I have belated but splendid notices from all the papers. They un-grudgingly give me a high place as a 'mere painter.' I have been on their trail for a long while and they never surrendered while they had a leg to stand on. The 'illustrator phase' has become background."

Frederic Remington had reached his goal. Less than a month later he was dead at the age of 48, a tragic and untimely loss.

The painting was shown only one more time, in 1915 at the Panama-Pacific Expo in San Francisco (loaned by the Paine's.) It then disappeared into relative obscurity, remaining in private collections. While it was mentioned here and there in various articles on Remington, it was pictured only four times (most notably in 1910 in Scribners and again in 1966 as a frontispiece in the deluxe edition of McCracken's book, Frederic Remington).

There are 4 paintings now in the Sid Richardson Collection that were in his last show at the Knoedler Gallery - The Love Call, Among The Led Horses, The Luckless Hunter, and Buffalo Runners - Big Horn Basin.

Near the turn of the century, the Indian Wars were ending and the transition to reservation life was in progress throughout the Plains region. As the West of Russell's youth yielded to encroaching civilization, his artistic vision evolved away from stern realism toward a more poetic and romantic style. The image of a single mounted warrior was a format Russell employed frequently and it clearly manifested his nostalgic sentiments. Throughout his artistic career, he did paintings depicting a single mounted Indian, from every tribe with which he came in contact. Russell's thorough knowledge of Native American culture led him to execute more than thirty individual paintings of Indians from some fifteen distinct tribes. These included the Arapaho, Assiniboin, Blackfoot, Blood, Cheyenne, Cree, Crow, Flathead, Kutenai, Nez Perce, Pawnee, Piegan, and Sioux.

A comparison of Russell's single figure studies, before and after the turn of the century, reveals a steady increase in his technical expertise. By 1905, his handling of human and equine form had reached its peak, mostly because of his exposure to the New York art world in late 1903-1904. The simple horse and rider compositions over the next ten years reveal Russell's flourishing sophistication as a draftsman and colorist. These new skills would also be apparent in the carefully worked, multi-figured paintings of the next decade.

Among his paintings of solitary warriors, mounted and poised for action, including a similar watercolor also done in 1907 Pawnee Chief (CM Russell Museum), is this fine study, with a less descriptive title The Scout, which shows him at the top of his form.

While critics may not have taken Russell's art too seriously at one time, they found the artist fascinating. He received attention from New York's professional illustrators who, charmed by his frank manner and droll humor, welcomed him into their ranks. Russell stoutly insisted upon his right to be himself. He dressed as he pleased - in cowboy boots and Stetson, with a woven sash to hold up his pants and he believed, keep his stomach small. His talk which was guarded and laconic when around strangers, flowed among friends, who regarded him as a master storyteller and delighted in his dry wit just as readers of his illustrated letters still do.

1887-1899 were formative years for Russell and his most experimental period in subject matter; he borrowed Remington subjects, compositions and figures as he worked out his own approach and defined his own turf. The Indian fighting army was Remington's, but Russell claimed the open range cowboy, the old-time Plains Indian and western wildlife. They were his West.

He elaborated setting in his paintings. Montana was home to him and he cherished the landmarks that identified specific locales - the Judith Basin, the Great Falls area, Glacier Park. One critic for the St. Louis Star said "Mr. Russell paints the landscape with as much fidelity as he does his figures…he gives a graphic description of the country which creates the rugged, boisterous, fun loving, life-loving, jolly men of the plains…" Those who champion Russell continue to refer to his authenticity rather than his artistry. Russell offered the "speaking details dear to any lover of western life."

He worked hard to satisfy the demand for authenticity but recognized, as he wrote a friend about his Indian paintings, that he had "always studied the wild man from his picture side."

Russell disclaimed any interest in "teckneque", mocked highfalutin artsy talk, and doubted that there was anymore to Impressionism than a desire to hide "bum drawin." But his own painting in the 1920's exhibits a bolder use of color and a painterly looseness that indicates an evolution (similar to Remington's evolution) away from the linear and the literal toward an appreciation of light and the way we feel what we see.

The core of his work is a sustained elegy in which time stands still. His images of the "onley real American", proud Indian men and women riding across the land they owned, of cowboys in their careless youth free never to grow old, and wild animals, buttes and rivers, and the rolling plains, will be there for generations to come. Through his art Russell speaks to us in the present voice, and what he says constitutes his claim to greatness.

In 1947, four Stock Show executives were presented with elaborate parade outfits. The sterling silver and hand-tooled black leather sets were custom made by Edward H. Bohlin, saddlemaker and silversmith, of Hollywood, California. Sid Richardson, one of the four, was presented his set by his friend, Amon Carter and Amon Carter Jr. Sid Richardson and Amon Carter (1879-1955), both successful oilmen, were also both collectors of Western art and sometimes, friendly rivals over a Remington or Russell painting.

The brown leather saddle, hand tooled and carved with highly detailed floral design, including bronc riders and Indian heads is embellished with sterling and gold conchos, and buckles. This outfit, including a matching breast collar, and bridle were also made by Edward Bohlin and given to Sid Richardson by Amon Carter.

Edward H. Bohlin (1895-1980) was the premier leathercraftsman and silversmith of the era. During the golden age of Hollywood westerns, Bohlin clients included such stars as Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Tom Mix, John Wayne, Tex Ritter, and Hopalong Cassidy.