The december issue of Rodeo News features an article on the Art of Rodeo of Bob Coronato. The article written by Siri Stevens

features an interview with Bob Coronato about the creation of the Rodeo Posters using the oil on board medium

Two PBS Television Specials 2015
Painting and Travel with Roger and Sara Bansemer Etching Studio tour of Bob Coronato
Painting and Travel with Roger and Sara Bansemer Tour of Devils Tower Frontier Museum “Rogues Gallery” with Bob Coronato

The Two Programs will Air on PBS Throughout the United States:
If you have not seen Roger and Saras Painting and Travel show I highly recommend it!! Fun, interesting and always educational.
Roger a great painter,and is one of the most prolific artists I have had the pleasure to meet. Sara and Roger came to Hulett Wyoming to film a couple episodes of their Program Painting And Travel with Roger and Sara Bansemer. while in Hulett Roger sketched the front of Rogues Gallery studio of Bob Coronato as well as came inside for a tour and filmed the Museum. In the museum there are hundreds of Old West Native American and Cowboy artifacts, guns, clothing and interesting Western Frontier items. the West comes alive in front of you!
The front of the Gallery has items for sale and the back of the building is a Museum. Inside the free museum visitors can see items like : Original Carbine from the Battle of Little Big Horn, The first Forensically Tested Custer Battle Indian Sharps Rifle proven to be at the Battle of Little Big Horn, 19th century Moccasins,American Indian Bows, Arrows, Cowboy Colt Single Action revolvers, Winchesters, 1866 Yellow Boy Winchester carbines, Early Mountain Man Rifle that once belonged to a very well known Mountain Man Rufus B Sage, in the 1840’s, Beaded American Indian War Shirts, Native American 19th century items of all kinds. Indian 19th century Leggings, old Tobacco Bags, Blanket Stripes, Indian Used and Captured firearms,… on and on.
There are a few displays of Prehistoric Native Artifacts including a Clovis Point 10,000 to 12,000 years old.
Most impressive is that the displays are easy to read, lots of photographs and its FREE!
Open from May through October,…best thing to do is to call just in case they are closed. 805-400-7706
Hulett Wyoming, and The Rogues Gallery Frontier Museum studio of Bob Coronato are a hidden jewel in the Black Hills and just a few miles from Devils Tower the first National Monument.

Carol Highsmith known as “Americas Photographer” and seen in the famous Quick Books Commercial has been traveling the country documenting America.
Carol Highsmith came to Hulett Wyoming to Document artist Bob Coronato in his Studio as well as bob Coronato with the well known portrait of Russell Means.
Bob Coronato Painted a full Life Size Portrait of Russell Means in 2009 and can be seen on www.bobcoronato.com

Library of Congress archive information :
Bob Coronato 6 Rodeo posters added to Library of congress Poster Archive 2015-2016

Bob Coronato Photographed for library of Congress by “Americas Photographer” Carol Highsmith 08-22-2015
Bob Coronato by Portrait of Russell Means call number LC-DIG-highsm- 34163
Bob Coronato in his Studio Call Number: LC-DIG-highsm- 34015

Six of the Historic and vintage style rodeo posters were also recently added to the U.S. Library of Congress Poster Collection Archive. The posters for rodeos like : Miles City Montana Miles City Bucking Horse Sale, Cheyenne Wyoming Cheyenne Frontier Days, Cody Wyoming Buffalo Bill Cody Stampede, Belle Fourche South Dakota Belle Fourche Black Hills Round Up, Pendleton Oregon, Pendleton Round Up Rodeo, Sheridan Wyoming Sheridan wyo Rodeo, Deadwood South Dakota, Days Of 76 Rodeo and others were submitted to the archives in 2015-2016.

New Article in the Rocky Mountain Horse Edition 2016 – 2017
The article starts with how Bob Coronato got to Hulett Wyoming via Friend Carson Thomas and worked on his art from first hand expierience. The Article ends with the newest development the Pittura Di Strati technique originated by Bob Coronato in 2007. The art form uses intaglio print making, oil painting and a contemporary form of silk screen in a way that was started by Andy Warhol in the 1960’s but refined in a new form of art known as Pittura Di strati. The oil is applied to board in the vintage letter set style giving the work a Vintage Rodeo Poster look. The newest poster in the series is for Pendleton Oregon for the Pendleton Round Up Rodeo. Others in the series include : Vintage Rodeo Posters for Hulett Wyoming, Wickenburg Az Gold Rush Days, Belle Fourche South Dakota the Black Hills Round Up, Miles City Montana The miles City Bucking Horse Sale, Sheridan Wyoming the Sheridan Wyo Rodeo, Cody Wyoming The Buffalo Bill Cody Stampede, Cheyenne Wyoming Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo, and Deadwood South Dakota Days Of 76 Rodeo, and finally this year was for Pendleton.

In the article in Journal of the Print World, there is a story about rodeo posters and the history. There are few rodeo posters that were printed that remain, from rodeos that were on the fourth of July. In the article it calls to the historic rodeo posters as well as contemporary. The Cody Wyoming Cody stampede rodeo poster falls on the fourth of July and is mentioned as being one of the few that the author could find. the author researches Vintage rodeo posters as well as the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum archives. Bob Coronato produces the contemporary rodeo posters in the Historic and vintage style using a teqnique known as Pittura Di strati. The art style was developed by Bob Coronato in 2007 and employs the use of itaglio print making, oil painting and contemporary silk screen. The final result is an original about 59 inches tall, oil on board that gets photographed, reduced and then sold at the rodeos as the official poster. Starting with Hulett Wyoming and other rodeos like Cody Wyoming Cody stampede, the Gold Rush Days, Miles City Bucking Horse Sale, Belle Fourche Black Hills Round Up, Deadwood South Dakota, days of 76 rodeo, Sheridan wyo Rodeo, Cheyenne Frontier Days and recently the Pendleton Round Up Rodeo in Pendleton Oregon.

BY Josh Samuelson
Miles City Star Staff Writer

Fans of the World Famous Bucking Horse Sale who are looking for a souvenir other than memmories, cell phone photos – or , if you’re a contestant, a few bumps and bruises – will be able to take home a beautifully crafted poster by renowned western artist Bob Coronato. The rodeo poster , which measures 18″ wide by 38 ” tall, is on sale for $20. and is available at the Miles City Area Chamber of Commerce or online at www.buckinghorsesale.com or www.milescitychamber.com.
Coronato, from Hulett Wyo., was at the Bucking Horse Sale last year, taking in the festivities, when he ran into Chamber Executive Director and BHS Board of Governors member John Laney. Coronato mentioned that he would like to do a commemorative rodeo poster for the Bucking Horse Sale, and after a quick Internet search, Laney and the chamber quickly agreed.

“It was probably the easiest committee i’ve ever worked with” Coronato said. “Usually they’re hesitant and shy about what your going to do. but they were great.” Coronato has done numerous posters for rodeos around the region, including Belle Fourche, S.D., Deadwood, S.D., and Sheridan, Wyo., among others. Due to the time that goes into each poster, he does just one a year.
“I want to get to all the major rodeos in the region,” Coronato said. “Ive been asked to do ones around the country, but I turned them down because I want to stay in this area.”

The process of putting togeather the impressive work of art starts with some studying.
“I came to the Bucking Horse last year and hung out for a few days and got the flavor of it all,” Coronato said. After getting the go-ahead from Miles City, Coronato went to work on the itricate painting. The painting took nearly four months, working seven days a week from 10 in the morning until as late as five the next morning. ” I’m not real fast,” Coronato said. “It’s a painting, and a painting in layers. It starts with a flat board, and then texture it down with modeling paste. I paint an acrylic on that and then go over it with a silk screen to get the lettering just right, and then over that with oil paint. And all of those steps take drying times and some manipulations.”

The original painting that was used to create the poster stands at 59 inches tall. “This is one of my favorites,” Coronato said. ” The whole event is one of my favorites. It’s a lifestyle, it’s iconic in a way. You’re not a real bronc rider until you’ve done Miles City.”

Laney and the chamber have been thrilled with the results of Coronato’s labor. “It’s a beautiful piece of art,” Laney said. “It’s nice to be in the mix with the rodeos that he’s doing. He wants to do the big rodeos in the region, and it’s cool that we got ours before Cheyenne Frontier Days got theirs.”

BOB CORONATO immersed himself in the Bucking Horse Sale, then spent hours capturing its spirit in this poster

Coronato grew up in New Jersey, but his heart was in the Old West. And after graduating from art school in Los Angeles, he moved to Hulett, Wyo., (pop. 383)
Coronat has lived in Hulett about 20 years now, but when he first moved their he quickly joined in the ranch lifestyle that would be the focus of his art. “Once I went to Hulett, I wanted to get fully embeded,” Coronato said. ” So i went to work on ranches, branding and trailing. I was free labor for everyone in southeastern Montana, Wyoming and South Dakota. I started out painting traditional ranching scenes, but i always wanted to do rodeo posters. I waited until it was just right. I waited to get into posters until i had enough expirience, lived long enough in the area to have it just right”

That dedication is evident in his poster for the Bucking Horse Sale. The work features scenes from throught the weekend, highlighted by a rider hanging on to a bucking horse. Ther’s also a scene from the street dance, and the wild horse racer being dragged through the dirt.

The BHS Board of Governors released a photo of the poster on facebook a few months ago, and there was immediate and overwhelming demand for the art. “it went wild,” Coronato said. ” People were calling constantly, and it wasn’t even done yet. We saw it was on pinterest: it was everywhere.”

The most interesting scene on the poster is at the bottom, featuring an old cowboy riding a young girl’s bike, a true story from Hulett. ” There was a guy in Hulett who hadn’t missed a Bucking Horse Sale in something like 30 years” Coronato said. ” And for whatever reasons, he didn’t have a drivers license. But he was going to get to the Bucking horse Sale, so he got on a bike and started pedaling to Miles City. He got about halfway to Alzada Mt. (30 miles from Hulett) and got picked up. he never missed a Bucking Horse Sale, and its kind of a legend in Hulett, so i had to get it on there.”

Coronato will not be signing posters at the sale, choosing to enjoy the weekend in realative anonymity. But he did sign the posters that are at the chamber.

Rare CDV carte de visite of Wild Bill
1873 Albumen photograph of Wild Bill Hickok
This image of Wild Bill Hickok taken by Gurney in his new york studio in 1873.
marked with his first address Gurney and Son fifth ave N.Y.
Also marked on the reverse with the photographers logo and address
All period Photographs of Wild Bill Are considered rare, this photograph of Wild Bill Hickok is one of two images that Gurney Took. Recently discovered in Germany as part of a deacession of a private museum.
Wild Bill finally made it home! ……on display in the Devils Tower Frontier Museum, Rogues Gallery.
The CDV of Wild Bill is in excellent shape with little wear.

Rare albumen photograph of Buffalo Bill Cody
This CDV of Buffalo Bill was taken in the 1870’s by Jeremiah Gurney in his new york studio.
Most likely in 1873 Gurney and son fifth ave N.Y. photographed B.B. Cody when Gurney also photographed Famous old west Lawman Wild Bill Hickok who was traveling with Cody at the time. Wild Bill was in the Buffal Bill Cody wild west show for about a year, and then returned to life in the frontier. On Display at the Devils Tower Frontier Museum / Rogues Gallery. in Hulett Wyoming.

SHA’BING !!
HOT OFF THE PRESS

As promised, the new painting in the Bob Coronato Rodeo Poster Series…… DEADWOOD
I worked on this painting for about a year. The Image was created from several new chine colle’ etchings that were then silkscreened down onto board and painted with oil. The new poster will be available in a few Galleries and exclusive shops throughout the Black Hills.
The antique rodeo poster feel comes from the Pittura Di Strati style of painting. The painting is acrylic, oil and Silk Screen on wood panell. Wild Bill Hickock with his guns drawn gets your attention and the aces and eights dead mans hand reminds you Wild Bill did not last long in Deadwood South Dakota.
Images of old antique American Indian beadwork , Antique western guns , old theater curtains and Lakota Sioux references are reminding of the history of Deadwood Gulch. Gold pans, card suits, Broncs and wild cowboy characters finish off the “feel” of deadwood. Deadwood South Dakota has a Rodeo every year known as the Days of 76 . The Black Hills and Deadwood are synonimous with Black Hills Gold. All of this was taken in to give the 2012 Rodeo Poster the Feel of “DEADWOOD”

The new poster is the latest in the Bob Coronato Rodeo Poster Series started in 2008. “I have been working on the series for years and the Pittura Di Strati painting style lends itself well to the vintage yet contemporary look of the Rodeo posters.” “They look like a vintage rodeo poster , but they are new and I create one about every year.”

Several in the series are completely sold out and the others are well on thier way. This is the latest in the series.
Some collect them because they look like an antique rodeo poster, others want a modern collectable rodeo poster from their favorite western town like DEADWOOD GULCH!

The sold out posters have consistantly brought 300. – 500. at auction when they come up for sale.
* The new poster in the “Bob Coronato series” is for Deadwood Gulch 2012 available for only 20.00 while they last.

Wace Snook from Hulett Wyoming near Devils Tower takes a classic ride in an old time pair of whooly chaps as he has in many exibition rides. He grew up riding bronce and he seems comfortable on Max burch rough stock. The quarter circle Z S is infamous for great rodeo stock and the legendary bucking horse Blood Brother. Max Burch Rodeo is the stock contracter for the Days of 76 Rodeo.

About the Image:

At the 2012 Deadwood Days of 76 Rodeo, Max Burch supplied the rough stock. locally his horses have been always known as some really rank outlaws. Burch’s P.K. Ranch, has hundreds of horses on his large ranch covering several hundred thousand acres. In the 1990’s Max would gather up his four year olds that had never been ridden and bring them to Jim Wilsons ranch in Ridge Montana. People would pull their trucks into a circle and have a ranch style rodeo, a good o’l bronc match. These horses had barley ever seen people before, being mostly wild, and the bronc match became one of the wildest rodeos most had ever seen. Every June for 10 years they bucked out over 50 head, the only hard part was finding enough cowboys to ride them all. It was like the early days of the west, but took place in the 1990’s. As you looked out across the prairie there was not a house to the horizon in any direction. With a cold wind blowing over the plains, wild horses, and mostly local cowboys, it was like going back in time to the earliest days of rodeo. The horses that bucked wild became rodeo stock, those that didn’t buck as hard became ranch horses, or were just set back out on the range. Since those days, Burch Rodeo horses have become legendary and many broncs have been chosen for the finals in Las Vegas year after year. Supplying some of these horses to the Deadwood Days of 76 Rodeo, Burch Rodeo is sure to supply every bit of what is expected at this historic Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame rodeo.

The Bronc rider in the poster, is Wace Snook a local cowboy from Hulett Wyoming, and locally one of the favorites. Wace is a pure class act, with an old time flair to his dress. I remember a story about Wace from when he was about 10, he went to Max’s bronc school to learn to ride. legend has it, that Max said you have to be at least 12 years old and 100 pounds. Wace wasn’t 100 pounds wet, but said “I’m 12 years old and 100 pounds”, the rest was history. I’ve always wanted to draw a bronc rider wearing woolly chaps but since that hardly ever happens anymore, it was not looking to good for me. I’ve always drawn or painted from real life, people I know, and places I’ve been. I wanted to draw someone wearing woollys, and wanted to see it or it just wouldn’t be real. Finally along came Wace, on many occasions he rides with woollys. Of course it’s usually at a “wild ride” or an exhibition ride, where its legal to fan the bronc and ride a stock saddle. Sometimes a little pink or purple chalk in the woollies helps, it always livens up a crowd to see the chalk puff out of the chaps. Every time the horse bucks with a cloud of chalk dust, the crowd hoots out cheers. The Towns around Deadwood and the Black Hills are still a living “old west” with all the flavor of the old days if you look for it. Just about a week ago Wace rode his horse into the Ponderosa Saloon in Hulett and packed out the bartender. Monty Neiman said to me, “Bob, I’ve got a title of your next painting,……I said whores, not horse!” and everybody laughed.
Wace, always being a class act, made sure his horse had a drink too before he rode out the side door!

As I created the imagery for the poster border, I took into mind many things important to Deadwood and the Black Hills during the Days of 76 rodeo. I put “Lakota territory” on the banner because technically the Black hills are still legally Lakota land. Paha sapa and He Sapa are Lakota for Black hills. In Lakota one is when your “in” the Black Hills and one is when your “looking at” the Black Hills. The coup stick with honors and gunstock war club give a taste of the early days and the Lakota warriors that roamed through these sacred hills. Those that live here can attest that the spirits of the Lakota that have changed worlds, still roam these hills. The flavor of Deadwood has always been mining, gambling, brothels, theaters, saloons, and “just plain wild”.

I drew all the little things that reflect the flavor of Deadwood. Looking close you will see old theater curtains, gold pans ,Plains indian arrows with iron trade points, 1851 navy colt, and ponderosa pine boughs. Tucked away like relics of the past, an old time rifle, powder horn, and a tin panner’s tools of the trade. The Spirit of Deadwood really never died in the old west. The hundreds of people experiencing the “odd things” in Seth Bullocks haunted hotel are just running into the gamblers and restless pioneers that still roam Deadwood. Hell,…it’s too much fun to just leave it, even after you cross over.

Deadwood has always had its host of characters in the past and the present. People that imbue the west like, Big nose george, Potato Creek Johnny, Poker Face Alice, Wild Bill, Calimity Jane, and Pam from the infamous Pams Purple Door. The characters I added to the bottom are a couple local guys born in Deadwood. On the left you have Saddle maker Carson Thomas, and on the right Tom Waugh, a local charter, hell raiser, and all around nice guy. I included Dirty Nellies Saloon because it was such a local classic. Even after the closing of this good time place of music and spirits, people morn. Years later in 2012 they had grave side rights with bag pipes and drinks served along with “relics” from the o’l bar for remembrance.

I used the card suits as a border for a couple of reasons. First to give flavor of this favorite cowboy/card-playing town, and second Wild Bill, the notorious western lawman, gambler, and lighting fast gunfighter who was killed in Deadwood. Wild Bill was shot from behind playing poker in Nuttal and Mann’s Saloon Ten. Bills last cards he held were aces and eights. His last hand has been known ever since as “the Dead-mans Hand” and is incorporated as the corner pieces. The saloon he was killed in was also the saloon I met my wife, so above Old Style Saloon Number Ten , I wrote “bad for Bill, good for Bob”.

This series of rodeo posters are some of my favorite work. Trying to keep them contemporary with an old time feel and yet they still drip with the flavor of the area they come from is my personal passion. Being a print maker and having a fondness for the old time letter press printing, I try to include all the details of that style of printing along with the modern images of friends and the local western flavor. Most people think they are Antique rodeo posters or based on vintage rodeo posters but they are not.

After spending about a week or two hanging these all over the Black Hills, I was finding as soon as they hung up, they were being stolen from every window and bar that had them. As fast as I could hang them, they were missing a day later. I walked up the street hanging them in Deadwood and by the time I reached the end five were missing. Ive been told it was the most popular poster they’ve ever had, but I get the biggest compliment every time someone steals one.

All Rights Reserved to the Artist.
Bob Coronato Hulett Wyoming

Rapid City Journal Aug 18 2011
PORCUPINE – Russell Means has looked death in the face before.

The former American Indian Movement leader counts nine assassination attempts on his life. He has survived danger, violence and numerous encounters with mortality — from the 1973 Wounded Knee occupation to guerilla wars in Nicaragua — in what he calls his “72 winters” of life.

But these days, the fiery 71-year-old activist turned actor is fighting a new and deadly foe with a different face: cancer of the throat — or esophageal cancer — that has spread to his tongue, lungs and lymph nodes. Doctors told Means last month that the cancer is too advanced for surgery.

Even if surgery had been an option, he would not have chosen it, Means said, since it meant removing his tongue and losing the ability to speak.

There are, he says, some things worse than death. Russell Means without the ability to voice his opinion may be one of them, he said.

He dismissed other treatments offered by mainstream medicine as well — heavy doses of radiation and chemotherapy that would also leave him unable to taste, speak or swallow normally.

“I’m not going to hang on to life under those conditions. No way am I going to hang on for that,” he said during a recent interview in the front yard of his ranch home near Porcupine. Those medical realities along, with other side effects — being fed through a tube and being confined to a wheelchair by extreme fatigue — were “unacceptable options,” he said. “To me, either way that’s a death sentence, or at least a torture sentence.”

One month after his dire diagnosis at a University of California medical center on July 18, Means is turning to the indigenous medicines and spiritual healing ceremonies found throughout the North American Native American culture — the same culture that he has spent a lifetime trying to preserve.

Means said he will battle the disease with traditional Native remedies. Herbal teas and other plants with cancer-fighting properties have come to him from tribes as far away as Guadalajara, Mexico, and as close as the Ojibwe tribe in Minnesota. He is also receiving cancer treatments that are approved in Europe and Canada but not in the United States at an alternative cancer center in Scottsdale, Ariz.

The charismatic and controversial Means never shrank from a political fight, but he is taking a philosophical approach to the grim news about his health. He knows his prognosis isn’t good, and he has made his peace with that.

“I’m not going to argue with the Great Mystery,” he said. “Lakota belief is that death is a change of worlds. And I believe like my dad believed. When it’s my time to go, it’s my time to go.”

The toll the cancer has taken on his body is evident in his speech, which is increasingly subdued and more difficult to understand. The man who drew media attention around the world and Hollywood acclaim for his role in the film version of “The Last of the Mohicans,” has been replaced by a shorter, slighter man who struggles to keep weight on.

Gone, too, are the signature braids that hung in parallel tracks down his chest and marked Means as a modern-day Lakota warrior, who is loved by many and vilified by others. But in every media photograph taken of him since he and Dennis Banks burst onto the national scene as the public face of AIM back in the 1970s, the braids are there.

The Lakota believe that hair holds memories. People in mourning often cut their hair as a way to release those memories and the people in them to the spirit world. Means cut his braids off shortly before he knew he had cancer, as a symbolic gesture to show that he was in mourning for his people.

“That’s the first irony here. I cut it because my people are dying — they’re dying as a culturally distinct people,” he said.

But whether his hair is worn in long straight braids or short, curly and covered — as it is on a recent sunny afternoon in a stylish straw fedora — one thing has not changed in Russell Means’ world. His devotion to his causes and his passion in promoting them is in no way diminished.

Means doesn’t hesitate when asked what the most important accomplishment of his life has been: The founding of the Republic of Lakotah, he says, and the “re-establishment of our freedom to be responsible” as a sovereign nation inside the borders of the United States. His efforts to have his proposed country recognized by the international community continue at the United Nations, he said, even as it is ignored by tribal governments closer to home, including his own Oglala Sioux Tribe.

“I live in the belly of the beast,” Means says, midway through one of his enthusiastic political polemics about the economic, moral and constitutional collapse of the United States.

Always a polarizing presence for the U.S. government, Means plans to remain so, perhaps even after his death.

“I’ve told people after I die, I’m coming back as lightning,” he said. “When it zaps the White House, they’ll know it’s me.”

As part of his vision to create Lakotah, Means started the Treaty School, an immersion-language school for young children in a three-story prototype of an oversized Lakota tipi on his property. The structure remains unfinished, and the school never grew beyond a handful of students.

“Because of our poverty, that ultimately failed,” he said.

People couldn’t afford gas to bring their children to school, much less tuition, he said.

“We’re losing our language, and nobody cares,” he said of a cultural reality that he sees as the biggest disappointment of his life.

His advocacy and acting have taken him to every continent except Antarctica — a place he has no interest in seeing, he said, despite his love of South Dakota’s winter weather.

“A South Dakota winter is my favorite season,” he said. “My people are energized in the winter. I am energized by it. You have to be to go out in it.”

Now, he said, he’s content to enjoy his home on the Pine Ridge Reservation. It sits at the end of a deeply rutted dirt road outside the village of Porcupine, just a few miles from the site of the Wounded Knee occupation, where his reputation as a law-breaking champion for Native American treaties and indigenous people’s rights was cemented.

He bought the acreage 11 years ago with money earned mostly from an acting career that included more than 30 films and television appearances. He shares it with his wife of 12 years, Pearl, 15 or 20 horses and an abundance of wildlife.

“It’s beautiful, as you can see. Very peaceful. This place is a game refuge,” he said.

After rumors of his health problems surfaced on the social network site Facebook, Means opted to confirm the reports in a video that has been posted to YouTube. Response to that video has been overwhelming, he said, as people call or email from all over the world to tell him they are praying for him.

“So, if I kick cancer, it’s going to be because of prayers and indigenous medicines — and some German/Canadian alternative treatments,” he said.

One of those prayers comes from his old friend and fellow AIM member Dennis Banks.

“He just called me. We’re going to get together in a couple of weeks,” he said.

Means suspects his detractors and critics, of whom there are plenty both on and off the reservation, will “rejoice” at news of his health problems.

Criticized by some of his fellow Native Americans for self-promotion, he is viewed with disdain by many law enforcement agents and others for the violence that often followed his protests.

He hasn’t bothered to write his own epitaph, and he doesn’t care what people say about him.

“If I cared what people said about me, I wouldn’t be who I am,” he said.

He chuckles, though, recalling a Los Angeles Times story that described him as “the most famous Indian since Sitting Bull or Crazy Horse.”

“I thought Jim Thorpe was,” he said with a grin. “Jim Thorpe was my hero.”

Russell Means: A look back

1970s

• Becomes a national media spokesman for the fledgling American Indian Movement by confronting costumed Pilgrims during a Thanksgiving re-enactment in Plymouth, Mass.
• Organizes a protest rally in Gordon, Neb., over the death of Raymond Yellow Thunder, which resulted in manslaughter indictments against two men.
• Is arrested along with 80 other people in the 1973 Custer County Courthouse riot, eventually serving one month in jail for his role in it.
• Organizes the 1973 Wounded Knee occupation with Dennis Banks and Leonard Peltier, a 10-week siege which made AIM a household word in America. A judge dismisses federal charges against him during a lengthy trial.
• Is acquitted of murder charges in the 1975 death of a man in a barroom brawl.
• Loses a close election for the presidency of the Oglala Sioux Tribe to Dick Wilson.

1980s

• Joins a U.S.-backed indigenous tribe in Nicaragua in its war against the communist Sandinista government, causing Means to quip, “I fought the capitalists and I fought the communists.”

1990s

• Launches a successful acting career with his role in “The Last of the Mohicans,” eventually appearing in at least 32 movies and television shows, including Disney’s “Pocohontas” and Oliver Stone’s “Natural Born Killers,” as well as “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”
• Publishes his autobiography, “Where White Men Fear to Tread.”
• Releases two albums of original music.

2000s

• Ran unsuccessfully for president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, losing to Theresa Two Bulls.
• Launched the Republic of Lakotah, an attempt to reassert the original land claims of the sovereign Sioux Nation by withdrawing from the 1851 and 1868 treaties with the United States.