"Mystery" of Fred Bear with Bobcat painting ... help needed

[Twitko]

I’d like to ask all of you for help … please .. any information or comment is heartily welcome.

Firstly I’d like to apologize for this message is quite long, but I believe it’s necessary to explain this issue in detail.

But I can promise you a mystery :-) … or interesting story regarding Fred Bear, at least. If you are fan of Fred Bear, I believe you will find new interesting information about him in my text bellow.

Secondly I should say "sorry for my English" .. I do my best, but it isn’t my mother language

OK, back to the point … probably most of you know painted picture of Fred Bear with bobcat, already. It was discussed through discussion forums several times.

   

Yes, nice painting. Nice ... but not ordinary one.

Several days ago, I found this picture at ***** auction. Of course, not original one, but print - limited print made for American Archery Council in 1985. Such a happy coincidence - I was able to examine it in detailed way (picture was well documented/photoed and detail-zoom was available). To my surprise .. but really BIG SURPRISE … I found the painting was made in Prague, Czechoslovakia and it's signed by its author - Zdenek Burian (at bottom right corner)

You should know Zdenek Burian is very, but really VERY famous artist, here in Czech (and probably in abroad, as well). He is famous about his terrific paintings of prehistorical animals, paintings from war, from Wild West, paintings of American Natives, trappers, hunters of all ages ...all youngsters here remember him and his great work from books, magazines, etc … he accompanied us through our youth.

Btw you can check some examples of his work at  http://burianzdenek.cz/Prehistorie.html  or at  http://burianzdenek.cz/Spisovatele.html  (I know those pages are in Czech, but I believe you can appreciate the examples of his work. If your are interesting just google his name and enjoy more).

Again, Zdenek Burian was my personal hero when I was young, as he supported my imagination.

And now I’ve found his painting of Fred Bear. My another hero. Unbelievable.

So far interesting, but real mystery begins just now. For AAC reprint purpose (probably), the painting was signed by Fred Bear (dated 1985). But, in this year, artist - Zdenek Burian was dead, already (he died at 1981). Thus this picture had to be painted earlier - before year 1981.

Believe me, it sounds oddly, as there was communist government in my country, and any contact between Czech people and “West world”, especially USA was very, very difficult and mostly impossible (maybe You know it as “iron curtain”)

I’ve never heard about cooperation between Mr. Burian and Mr. Bear. I contacted Burian’s museum and some experts of his work. And I got interesting answer :

 “… Yes, there were 5 paintings of Fred Bear, made by Zdenek Burian. But we know only their brief description - one line comment. Nobody have seen them and there is neither copy nor draft, so we have no clue how they look exactly … They seems to be lost forever as there is not any additional information about them".

Yes … Gotcha … “my” painting is the first opportunity for experts here to personally see one of those pictures. And believe me .. all of them are really excited.

Now back to paintings .. so far we know, from very brief description, they are/were five pictures

1) portrait of Fred Bear - from year 1955 - no detailed info
2) FB and bobcat - version 1 - year 1956 - bobcat is “around his neck” (our version)
3) FB and bobcat - version 2 - year 1956 - from the side view & bobcat is on Fred’s back
4) FB and bear - version 1 - year 1958 - no detailed info
5) FB and bear - version 2 - year 1958 - no detailed info

and even more .. all of them were ordered from USA, Michigan. Yes, Michigan sounds familiar, doesn’t it ? There was a Bear Archery company located in Grayling, MI. So, we may assume the order “came” either from Bear Archery of from Fred directly (?)

Please note two very important facts :

1) I notified about iron curtain (communist government) already. But years 55-58 were probably the worst. Even ordinary contact with USA was almost impossible, but even more .. it could be a cause to severe prosecution, even to jail. Hard jail for many years. It was nightmare .. and in this "dark years” Zdenek Burian was painting pictures for Fred Bear. Unbelievable …

Nobody knows how Fred Bear came to know Mr. Burian.

2) Cooperation between Bear and Burian was not “one-time”. Those 5 pictures were made during period of 3 years. It looks like three separate orders (?) Maybe …

Ok, back to the paintings. All we know  - they were ordered, painted and sent to Michigan. I said already, all experts here in Czech are quite excited about "my finding” (and please note “my" picture is just only reprint - not original one).  

Five paintings. Now, we know one of them, at least. But many questions still remain.  Where are originals? How do they look like ? Do they still exist or are they lost at all ? We don’t know who actually ordered and got them.

a) If Mr. Bear personally, then they could be still in family ownership. Maybe they were present/gift ? But from whom to who ?

b) If Bear Archery company, they were probably displayed somewhere. Maybe at factory, later at Fred’s museum. Firstly at Grayling, lately at Gainesville and now owned by BassPro (?)

I know BassPro bought all museum exhibits. We tried to contact BassPro already, to get some information, but no success. Sorry to say .. it seems ordinary employees don’t know their company own items from Bear museum, at all. Shame. Maybe we were not lucky, enough but we didn’t get any reasonable answer from BassPro.

Here .. we "lost our track”. Our “investigation” seems to be at dead end…

But I believe there are people who could help us. People who were in contact with Mr. Bear, or the company. People who worked at Bear Archery. People who often visited museum and know its exhibits. Maybe there some photos of its content. People - fans - who are interested in Fred Bear heritage. Collectors. Enthusiasts.

And BassPro - maybe some of you have friendly connection to BassPro management and can give me advise, whom to contact to get reasonable and friendly answer.

You can have some memories, information which could help us and push this story to new level. And maybe help us to solve this “mystery”. We’d like to know all possible details about those paintings. The content. How they appear. Maybe get some photos. To know they still exist.

And maybe get some additional information about Fred Bear and Zdenek Burian. Because I heartily believe such great men deserve we should know their connection. Details about their cooperation and maybe even friendship, despite of the fact of bad times - communists and iron curtain.

Thank You very much in advance. As I stated above, any information, comment, tip, photo .. anything is welcome.

SIncerely

Jan

P.S. BTW Fred Bear was not the only famous bowhunter painted by Zdenek Burian. As a reward for your patience, here is two paintings of Saxton Pope

   
     


 http://www.daildeca.cz/ilustrace/01burian/21stz12/19.jpg  and  http://www.daildeca.cz/ilustrace/01burian/21stz12/20.jpg

[Shane Reed]

Jan,
  I have passed on your posting to some people who may be able to help. Not many who spent time with Fred during that period left if any that I know of. Hopefully we can get some answers. Wade may have some insight on this, and is on here once in a while.

Shane

[Shane Reed]

Just a little progress for you Jan.

"I told Dick and he thinks the original was in the museum but not sure. He has contacts he is going to forward the article to. He was involved with the American Archery council when they were selling that print"

[Twitko]

Shane,

GREAT news .... any progress, any information is welcome. But what I appreciate even more, is your friendly approach.

Thank you very much and looking forward to any additional info.

TW

[eidsvolling]

Jan, there is no need to apologize for the length of your message or your English. I spend some time nearly every week looking at bad English, and yours is far from that.

You have surely set some hearts aflutter here, and I wish you every success in this particular hunt and any others you start on.

[Wade Phillips]

Jan -

Thank you so much for your very informative post. I can’t ever remember reading a post here that has the intrigue of spy novel set behind the iron curtain coupled with this forum's greatest bowhunting hero of the last half of the 20th century and the mystery of how the two parties conducted business.  

Your post certainly clears up many questions for me. Learning that the expertise of the late artist was palaeontology in an area of the world that at the time was all but sealed off from any exposure to the events occurring in the United States, explains a lot.

I was always puzzled by the print of Fred and the bobcat as the date of the bow depicted is a couple of decades removed from the actual occurrence of the event that I am familiar with.  

The bows in the other two paintings that you posted were also puzzling to me. While the bowman in the background of each painting resembles some photographs of Art Young in the field, my untrained eye failed to pick up the resemblance of the bowman in the foreground to Saxton Pope. I'm certain that an artist of the incontrovertible reputation as the famous Zdenek Burian, had more than sound reasoning for creating the images in the manner that he did. After reading about him and his works this evening, I have all the respect in the world for his artistic genius. For those of us who enjoy art, the beauty of paintings is that they are not photographs. I have a resident art history major on hand here 24/7 who is an invaluable resource, but she has no interest in archery or bowhunting.

Thanks again for your wonderful posting. The best of luck to you in your search. Sorry I could not be of any help.

[Twitko]

Guys, thank you all for all kind words.

Wade .. Yes, You are right with Saxton Pope. I got those pictures as "benefit" from Burian's museum, but I didn't verify it.

Another interesting detail .. we can suppose Burian never met Fred Bear personally. He "knew" him probably only from photos. But there is not (as far as I know) any photo of FB with bobcat, which could be "direct model" for this painting.

And even one more detail ... if you check bow in Fred's hand .. it seems there is a mistake. The bow at picture is probably right-handed bow (if we assume quiver is mounted in normal way - with hood at the top - fletching down).

But as far as I know Fred used left handed bow ..and in this case quiver should be mounted / painted at opposite side.

That's proof (probably) Burian knew Bear from photographs only .. maybe just his face and all other content of painting is his imagination.

[TonyW]

Professor Oldrich Fejfar from Prague's Charles University says this about Burian:

"I met him several times but only shortly. He told me always some interesting things. For example, he loved and he was extremely interested in North American Indians. And he told me - 'give me any face [of a member of an Indian tribe] and I will draw it for you. I know every tribe in North America.' He also subscribed to the National Geographic, he studied the faces of Indians with great interest. And he told me it was his hobby to paint those men, those free men living in nature.

Fred Bear was definitely a free man living in nature.

[Shane Reed]

Good post Tony. I believe Indian too, but my memory could be off.

[TonyW]

Jan - :

    http://www.bowhunter.cz/index.php/technika/historie/229-fbazb  


English translation  Be sure to read down to "Fred Bear and Zdeněk Burian?" and then click "Read more"

   http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=cs&u=http://www.bowhunter.cz/&prev=search

[Twitko]

There is fact you should know ... just small addition which could help you to understand better ...  there is a very strong relationship to USA, here in Czech republic. A lot of people really love USA, America, its history, traditions. It's quite complicated to say why this relationship is so strong. Of course .. US troops liberated part of our country, during WWII. But I think this is not only reason. Several countries here, in the middle of Europe, were liberated by US, but only here in Czech you can find such strong attachment.

There was (and still is) a big influence of E.T.Setton and Woodcraft and scouting. All of us read books about Wild West, Indians, America history, when youngsters. There was a great writer of books for youngsters -  stories based on scounting principles - Jaroslav Foglar (BTW big friend of Zdenek Burian). Foglar was prosecuted by communists and was not allowed to write and publish at all. But in spite of this fact, he was very famous - all young boys read his books. While under communist government, we dreamed about America - we knew it is somewhere "over the horizont". And believe me .. it helped :-) And - there is a country music VERY popular here in Czech. American country .. in the middle of Europe :-) But that's true. And not only original US songs, but we have many Czech country bands creating their own songs. And bluegrass ... oh my .. I believe we have some of the best bluegrass musicians in the world.

All info written above is important to fully understand, why so many Czech people are interested in America so deeply. And why Zdenek Burian (and not only him) was so fascinated by American history, Indians, cowboys etc ...

TW

[Twitko]

Originally posted by TonyW:
Jan - You may already have this link:
  http://www.bowhunter.cz/index.php/technika/historie/229-fbazb  

TonyW .. I know this website and this article. This is my website, devoted to bowhunting and I wrote this article, several days ago :-)

but anyway thank you for input and effort ...

TW

[Blackhawk]

Twitko,

Thanks for the interesting and informative post.

Everyone loves a great mystery, and I wish I had something helpful to add.  At least Wade, Shane and Tony are doing their part.

[TonyW]

Wade -

Can you identify a photograph that the artist used as a source for Fred's face?

My foggy brain recalls a Bear archery ad with that smile.

[Wade Phillips]

Originally posted by Wade Phillips:
Jan -

...I was always puzzled by the print of Fred and the bobcat as the date of the bow depicted is a couple of decades removed from the actual occurrence of the event that I am familiar with....  
 

Jan -

The only bobcat that I can recall Fred taking was during the 1940s. He used a Grumley bow and a scabbard quiver on the bow.

I thought everyone had seen this footage of Fred shooting the bobcat out of the tree, but apparently not, judging from posts on this thread.

I made the earlier comment quoted above, as in the painting, Fred has a bow from at least two decades later than the 1940s.

I can not recall any still photographs of the hunt, only the brief film footage, which I have always thought was really well known.

Guess it would make sense to me that Fred might want a painting as a remembrance of the bobcat hunt, especially if he could secure the services of a famous painter.

Also of note are the bows in the other two images which more closely resemble mid to late 1960s Bear bows, than 1920s era bows of Pope & Young.

With the artist having such limited access to information about the progress and the development of archery tackle in North America, nothing would surprise me about the paintings not having the equipment from the period of the event.

For me this finally explains the inaccurate details in the bobcat print and gives us another interesting story.

[Tox Collector]

Great post -- great background information on this print.  Knowing this information increases the value of this print substantially!

Thanks for the info!

[TonyW]

   

Bear Archery advertisement from 1956

     


   

[jackdaw]

Tony...the term MAGNUM could not have been in public usage very long when that Bear ad was run.....

[jackdaw]

Tony...the term MAGNUM could not have been in public usage very long when that Bear ad was run.....

[jackdaw]

Tony...the term MAGNUM could not have been in public usage very long when that Bear ad was run.....