Olaf C. Seltzer

Seltzer was born on August 27, 1877, in Copenhagen, Denmark.^[1][2][3] He emigrated to the United States with his mother after his father died, and settled in Great Falls, where his uncle lived.^[2] He did not speak English when he arrived.^[4]

Seltzer worked as a machinist for the Great Northern Railway.^[4][5] In 1897, he began painting alongside Charles M. Russell.^[2] Seltzer decided to paint independently from 1921 onward.^[2] He worked as an illustrator for The New York Tribune in 1934,^[1] and he exhibited his work in Seattle in 1936.^[2] He did 275 paintings for physician Philip G. Cole.^[3] He did over 2,500 paintings and illustrations over the course of his career.^[5]

Seltzer did both watercolor and oil paintings,^[6] and he depicted life in the American West, including animals, cowboys and historical events.^[4][7][8] He also painted pioneers like Meriwether Lewis and William Clark.^[7] Seltzer did a painting for the Grand Masonic Library in Helena.^[1] President Harry Truman received one of his paintings as a gift on his 1950 visit to Montana.^[1] His work was exhibited at the Gilcrease Museum in Oklahoma in 1957.^[2]

Seltzer married Mabel L. Cleeland in 1903.^[3] They had two sons, Carl and Walter, and they resided in Great Falls.^[1]

Seltzer died on December 16, 1957, in Great Falls, Montana.^[1][2] Some of his work is in the permanent collection of the C. M. Russell Museum Complex in Great Falls,^[9] the Art Institute of Chicago,^[10] the Gilcrease Museum in Oklahoma,^[11] and the Tacoma Art Museum in Tacoma, Washington.^[5] His papers are at the Smithsonian Institution's Archives of American Art.^[12]

His grandson, Steve Seltzer, is a painter.^[4]

• Kennedy, Michael S. (1960). The Life and Times of Olaf C. Seltzer, 1877 to 1957: Meticulous Montana Frontier Artist. Helena, Montana: Historical Society of Montana. OCLC 22900958.