Description
Handwritten letter from William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody to American artist Irving R. Bacon, while on tour in Stockport, England, October 18, 1904.
Buffalo Bill’s Wild West stationery, previously folded, measures 8.5″ x 11″. The letter is addressed and dated: “Stockport / Oct. 18.”
The inscription reads: “Dear Bacon, Glad to hear from you – I sail Saturday and am going to rush through to Cody. Will arrange to see you on my return. Send anything ready to Cody. Hastily Yours, Cody.” Includes a Buffalo Bill Cabinet Card, circa 1897.
When Irving R. Bacon met Buffalo Bill in 1901, he was already an established illustrator, even contributing 98 engravings and colored page plates to W. F. Bayer and O. F. Keydel’s comprehensive history of the Congressional Medal of Honor, titled Deeds of Valor. William F. Cody received the Congressional Medal in 1872, after a relatively insignificant action against a small group of Indians. The publisher assigned Bacon to illustrate Cody’s entry in the book, for which he drew a picture of Cody killing two escaping Indians with a single rifle shot. When Cody saw it he arranged with Bacon to produce a painted version of it, to be titled Buffalo Bill in Pursuit, or Two with One Shot. Bacon painted it in oil on canvas in 1901 and delivered it to Cody the following spring in New York where the Wild West was preparing for the 1902 season. Thus began an association that lasted the remainder of Cody’s life. Bacon was a skilled illustrator on the way to becoming a painter, and he found the patronage of the great Colonel Cody quite valuable as he constructed his career. Cody appreciated not only the young man’s skill, but his willingness to fall into step with the creation of the mythology of Buffalo Bill Cody’s West. (Cody Studies, Bacon)
