Carl Olaf Seltzer

Olaf began his art training at the age of 12. His family, with their meager means, managed to enroll him in the Danish equivalent of a private school. Here his deft drawing abilities were discovered inspiring his family and teacher to install him at the Technical Society. The Society was a primer for promising young artists considered potential material for the Royal Academy. His hopes for a continued education were dashed when the death of his father resulted in his mother and himself boarding a ship bound for America. 
 
Olaf and his mother arrived in New York on July 12, 1892 and boarded the transcontinental train. Five days later they disembarked in Great Falls, Montana where they joined his sister Laura and her husband in Giant Springs, Montana a short distance from Great Falls, Montana. Olaf worked as a cowboy his first year in Montana, supplying horses for the Yellowstone Stage Lines. When Seltzer realized the wages were better in the rail business he began as an apprentice machinist for the Great Northern Railroad and eventually became a locomotive repairman in October of 1893; all the while sketching in his spare time. He worked with the railroad for over 20 years.
 
In 1897, he met Charles Russell who gave him a great deal of advice and encouragement. His friendship with Russell brought Seltzer into the company of many famous patrons and bolstered his growing success. They visited each other's studies, and together went on many sketching and hunting trips in the Montana wilderness. By 1901, Seltzer was confidently working in oils and had become deeply interested in painting wildlife. 
 
 When he was 44 years old, he was laid-off by the railroad company and took up painting full time. Due to his association with is friend, CM Russell, he was hired by Dr. Philip Cole; a major patron of Russell’s. Dr. Cole introduced Seltzer to New York society expanding his own patron base. For Cole, he painted a series of miniature vignettes of Montana as well as other major oils and watercolors for Cole’s collection. Through this associated with Cole, it helped establish Seltzer as an important artist and he completed many commissions and sales on the open market. From that point on he made his living solely as an artist until his death in 1957.

From the late 1920-1930’s, Seltzer was able to establish a patron base through his art and sustained him until his death in 1957. Upon Dr. Phillip Cole’s death in 1946-1947, Thomas Gilcrease of Oklahoma bought the estate of Dr. Cole which established the Thomas Gilchrest Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma where many of Seltzer’s oils, vignettes and watercolors hang. His work may also be seen at the CM Russell Museum in Great Falls, Montana, The Buffalo Bill Museum in Cody, Wyoming, the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas and many corporate and private collections.