Although western subjects remained a staple throughout Frederic Remingtons highly successful career, his late pictures reflect a drastic shift in mood and style. In contrast to his earlier scenes of blazing battles between Indians and cowboys or cavalrymen rendered in a crisply detailed realism, The Outlier depicts a solitary figure riding through a nocturnal landscape in loose, impressionist brushwork. Remington struggled with the execution, noting in his diary, I modeled and laid in the Outlier for the 10th time. I will not be licked. Despite the paintings progressive style, its subject of a Native American warrior is steeped in nostalgia: by 1909, the wars for U.S. control over Indian territories had been over for nearly twenty years.