This Was a Fatal Embarkation

Frederic Remington · 1898

Medium

Oil on canvas

Original size

68.6 × 102.2 cm (27 × 40 1/4 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Impressionism

"This Was a Fatal Embarkation" carries the weight of its title in every brushstroke — a scene of soldiers pushing off into dark water that feels less like a departure and more like a reckoning. Frederic Remington painted this in 1898 during his time covering the Spanish-American War in Cuba, working first as a correspondent and artist for William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal. Where his earlier career was built on romantic visions of the American West, his Cuban war work shows a harder, more haunted sensibility — figures caught in low light, movement suggesting dread rather than adventure. His technique here favors murky tones and compressed compositions that heighten the sense of foreboding rather than spectacle. Remington is documented as having grown deeply disillusioned with the war after witnessing combat firsthand in Cuba, a shift that visibly darkened the mood of the paintings he produced in this period. Now held in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, the original remains inaccessible to most. This hand-painted oil reproduction is made to order by skilled studio artists working directly from high-resolution reference, preserving Remington's characteristic handling of light, atmosphere, and the quiet tension that makes this work so arresting.