After Nancy Cooper married Charlie Russell in 1895, she helped turn a journeyman cowboy and ranch hand who sketched and sculpted in his spare time into a full-time artist who sold and exhibited all over the globe. In Behind Every Man: The Story of Nancy Cooper Russell, Joan Stauffer offers the first biography of the person whom Charles Russell called “the best booster and pardner a man ever had.” Stauffer’s portrait, evoked in the voice of its subject and based on a decade of research, offers readers both a complete life story of Nancy Russell and creative insight into her thoughts and feelings.

Stauffer reveals that Nancy and Charles’s union created a practical synergy. Always an advocate for her husband, a steward of his art, and a liaison to his admirers and critics, Nancy’s greatest contribution may have been the inspiration she provided Charles. “I done my best work for her,” the cowboy artist once remarked.