Days on the Range ("Hands Up!")

Days on the Range — subtitled 'Hands Up!' — is a dramatic Western subject depicting a confrontation or hold-up on the open range, a genre that Remington had made quintessentially American. By 1902 Remington was simultaneously the dominant illustrator of Western subjects in American popular culture and an increasingly ambitious fine artist. This canvas represents his attempt to invest familiar Western genre subjects with the painterly ambition of his late experimental period, pushing beyond the illustrative directness of his earlier work. The painting is at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

The composition captures a tense moment of confrontation with riders positioned dramatically. Remington renders horses and riders with his characteristic anatomical confidence. The palette shows some of the atmospheric loosening of his late career while retaining his earlier directness of observation.