Session Two

Initial Visions and Visual Interchanges

Seth Eastman, American, Sioux Indians Breaking Up Camp, 1848. Oil on canvas, 25 1/4" x 34 7/8", MFA, Boston.

Welcome to Session Two

Our study of Indigenous art begins first with the work of Anglo artists in fine arts and photography depicting Native Americans during a period of almost 200 years, starting in the mid-19th Century. What themes, what stories are suggested?

You will also read a little about American photographer Edward S. Curtis who was noted for both his contributions and the limitations his work may have suggested.

You will also find here portraits done by Anglo photographers in the mid and late 19th century of Indigenous leaders who had come to Washington, DC for treaty negotiations. Fortunately this work has been preserved and today is found in some museums across the country. What a great historical source!

For our class meeting on March 17 scroll down and read about these artists and view their work. What are your impressions from these works?

Part One - Anglo Paintings of Native Americans (in the field) by two artists: Seth Eastman, Alfred Jacob Miller.

Seth Eastman (1808 - 1875)

Seth Eastman

Seth Eastman was an American artist and West Point graduate who served in the U.S., first as a mapmaker and illustrator.

Further background information

Seth Eastman (Wikipedia)
Seth Eastman: Pioneer and Painter, Minnesota Historical Society Library
"Seth Eastman: Painting the Dakota" excerpt 3.47 min YouTube

See work below by Seth Eastman

Seth Eastman, American, 1808–1875, Ball Playing among the Sioux Indians, 1851 (Seth Eastman's painting of Native American men playing a spirited and somewhat violent, game that inspired modern lacross based on sketches he made during his time as an army officer and mapmaker.) National Gallery of Art.

Alfred Jacob Miller (1810 - 1874)

Alfred Jacob Miller

Alfred Jacob Miller was an American artist best known for his paintings of trappers and Native Americans in the fur trade.

Further background information

Alfred Jacob Miller (Wikipedia)
Alfred Jacob Miller: 10 works (slideshow) (Google Arts and Culture)

See work below by Alfred Jacob Miller

Alfred Jacob Miller, Trapper's Bride, 1858-1859, watercolor heightened with white on paper (18th and 19th centuries) The Walters Art Museum.

Alfred Jacob Miller, Buffalo Hunt, 1840, oil on canvas. Gilcrease Museum

Alfred Jacob Miller, Lost Greenhorn, 1858, The Walters Art Museum.

Part Two - Charles Bird King

Charles Bird King

Charles Bird King, (1785-1862) was an American portrait artist, best known for his portraits of Native American leaders and tribesmen.

Further background information

Charles Bird King (Wikipedia)

See work below by Charles Bird King

Charles Bird King, "Young Omahaw, War Eagle, Little Missouri, and Pawnees," 1821, Smithsonian Art Museum.

"War Eagle wears a presidential peace medal, valued by Native Americans as a sign of status and worn on all formal occasions. The artist painted the chiefs with a war axe, blood-red face paint, and eagle feathers atop their heads, reinforcing the romantic image of Indians as savages. One Englishman, however, saw them differently. He described them as "men of large stature, very muscular, having fine open countenances, with the real noble Roman nose, dignified in their manners, and peaceful and quiet in their habits." Smithsonian (SAAM-2006)

"In his Seventh Street studio, Charles Bird King painted their portraits, creating a gallery of allies in the government’s plan to settle the Indian question peacefully."(SAAM 2006)

Charles Bird King, "Keokuk, Chief of the Sacs and Foxes" 1838, Albumen silver print, Smithsonian American Art Museum

Part Three -Henry Inman

Henry Inman (1801 - 1846), an American portrait, genre and landscape painter.

Further Information

Native American Portraits by Henry Inman, Peabody Museum

See work below by Henry Inman and including painting, [Tah-Col-o-Qu,oit (Rising Cloud)]Asakiwaki/Sauk Warrior; representative of the Sauk and Fox coalition

Henry Inman, painting of [Tah-Col-o-Quoit], ca.1832

[Tah-Col-o-Quoit] was elected by intertribal council to represent the Athâwethiwa or Asakiwaki (People of the Yellow Earth; Sauk) and Meshkwahkîhaki or Meskwaki (People of the Red Earth; Fox) on a diplomatic visit to Washington, D.C. In his portrait, [Tah-Col-o-Quoit] chose to be represented in traditional dress with adornments and elements connoting their esteem and power. Wrapped in a greatcoat of soft buckskin, [Tah-Col-o-Quoit] wears a metal medallion, a headbandecked with claws and feathers, dyed hair, and carries a beautifully embellished “gunstock” club: a tool of great importance in hunting, war, and peace ceremonies. The lithographic and painted representations of [Tah-Col-o-Quoit] by Inman, Cephas Childs, and Charles Bird King arguably the most famous and most reproduced of the series. For further information: [Ta :h-Col-o-Quoit (Rising Cloud)]Asakiwaki/Sauk Warrior; representative of the Sauk and Fox coalition.

In the 1930s, the Inman paintings were removed from their original frames and put into wood frames painted to imitate expensive veneer. The paintings were also cut from their original tacking and underwent excessive overcleaning. This permanent damage to the supports and paint layers repressed the identifying characteristics of the sitters and much of Inman’s celebrated brushwork. A second treatment in the early 1970s could not mitigate the degraded paint layers. For further information: [Tah-Col-o-Quoit (Rising Cloud)]Asakiwaki/Sauk Warrior; representative of the Sauk and Fox coalition.

Henry Inman, painting of [Weesh-Cub (The Sweet) Anishinaabe delegate to the First Treaty of Prairie du Chien; believed [Weesh-Cub (The Sca.weet)] of the Chippewa, ca.1832

Clad in a blue frock coat, a feathered headdress, a brocade waistcoat, shirt points, a silver necklace, face paint, and a black cravat, [Weesh-Cub] transmits confidence, acutely aware of the western style of dress and the relationship between clothing, power, and formations of autonomy and cultural belonging across intersectional identities. The multicolor bandolier strap across the torso suggests the leader may be wearing a medicine bundle.

Alongside leaders and representatives from the Council of Three Fires (amillennia-long Anishinaabe national alliance of the Ojibwe/Chippewa, Odawa/Ottawa, and Potawatomi Peoples), [Weesh-Cub] gathered with delegations of the Ho-Chunk, Iowa, Menominee, Sioux, Sac, and Fox and the United States in August 1825 to diplomatically resolve tensions caused by U.S. mining, settler encroachment, and debates over land and water rights that were disrupting the French–U.S. fur trade. For further information, Anishinaabe delegate to the First Treaty ofPrairie du Chien; believed [Weesh-Cub (The Sweet)] of the Chippewa.

Part Four - Nineteenth century Photographic Portraits of Native Leaders

"Indigenous peoples have long organized themselves into sovereign entitiies that vary tremendously in their languages, customs and cultural protocols. In the middle and late 1800s, American eagerly claimed Native lands for their own , negating and dismissing the rights and heritage of Indigenous peoples.

During this period, leaders and delegates of Indigenous nations traveled repeatedly to Washington, D.C. to negotiate treaties with the United States. During these trips, it was common for them to sit for photographic portraits. They brought the same strength and dignity to the photographers' studios that they brought to their diplomatic dialogues." Denver Art Museum Speaking with Light

Charles Milton Bell

Charles Milton Bell (1848-1893) was one of Washington DC's leading portrait photographers during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. See his work below.

Charles Milton Bell (1848-1893), Navajo Delegation to Washington, DC in 1874, Albumen silver print from glass negative. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

"Illustrating Indigenous leaders' use of the nascent medium as a tool for projecting power, agency and dignity through their chosen atire as they posed for U.S. photographers."

Charles Milton Bell (1848-1893), Juanita, Chief Manuelito's Favorite Wife, also called Ta-Ha-Ni Ba-Da-Na (1874), Albumen silver print, Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas

For background information, read Speaking with Light - Indigenous Portraitures by Jennifer Nez Denetdale (Dine) whose great-great-great-grandmother, Juanita, was the subject in both the above and below photos.

Charles Milton Bell (1848-1893), Navajo chief Manuelito's favorite wife Juanita with Indian Agent W.F.M. Arny, Washington, DC 1874. Palace of the Governors Photo Archives, New Mexico History Museum, Santa Fe, New Mexico

"According to the documentation, the Indian Agent used traveling with the delegation as an opportunity to showcase Dine-made crafts like the textile used as a prop in this image". In the 1870s when this image was taken the tourist gaze was influencing Dine' weavers. The textile, a semblance of the American flag with its red-white and-blue pattern, perhaps speaks (Juanita) with consciousness of the Navajo relationship to the United States, a way of recognizing the Dine' affirmation of belonging to a nation, a recognition that their very survivial requires entreaty with the United States." Speaking with Light, Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

Antonio Zeno Shindler

Antonio Zeno Shindler, born c. 1813 (or 1823) in Bugaria, studied art in Paris. He immigrated to the U.S. with the English ethnologist William Blackmore and his expeditionary party, about 1845. He lived in Washington, D.C., 1876–99 and worked as an artist for the Smithsonian.

Antonio Zeno Shindler, 1813/1823–1899, Kol-kol-shu-a-tash (Jason) (Nez Perce) in Native Dress and Perrin Whitman, Non-Native Interpreter, 1868,Albumen silver print, Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas, P1967.2878. © Will Wilson

"Kol-kol-shu-a-tash and other Nez Perce chiefs went to Washington, DC, in 1868 seeking protection from illegal incursions and settlement by US citizens that continued even after the tribe had given up 90 percent of their lands over the previous 20 years. Their pleas were unsuccessful, and 10 years later, the Nez Perce tribe was all but destroyed in the infamous Nez Perce War." (Denver Art Museum, Speaking with Light)

Julian Vannerson

Julian Vannerson (c. 1827 – after 1875) was an American photographer from Virginia during the American Civil War of the 1860s..

Julian Vannerson, American, 1827–after 1875, Chief He-Hu-Te-Dan (Little Short Horn) (Sisseton) in Partial Native Dress, Wearing Feather in Hair, Blanket, and Holding Cane, May 1858.
Albumen silver print, Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas, P1967.3017. © Will Wilson

"Between 1837 and 1851, the US government forced Dakota tribes to cede more than 44,000 square miles across what is now western Wisconsin and southern Minnesota. In 1858, one month after Minnesota became a state, Dakota leaders, including He-Hu-Te-Dan, were summoned to Washington, DC, and detained until they signed away prime woods and meadows along the north bank of the Minnesota River that were already being illegally settled by US citizens. This pushed the Dakota to less desirable land farther west." (Denver Art Museum, Speaking with Light)

(Unknown photographer)

Unknown photographer, Tsoniako (Wichita), About 1872, albumen silver print, Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas, P1967.2287. © Will Wilson

Part Five- Edward S. Curtis, American, The North American Indian, "... a 30 year project by a Seattle society photographer to photograph Native Indians and cultures in their traditional clothing and settings before they were assimiliated into modern American culture (vanished)"

Edward S. Curtis

Edward S.Curtis

Edward S. Curtis, (1868-1952) was an American photographer and ethnologist whose work focused on the American west.

Further background information

Edward S. Curtis, Wikipedia
A Critical Understanding of Edward Curtis, Photos of Native American Culture. A massive installation at the Muskegon Museum of Art displays Edward Curtis’s entire ethnographic survey of surviving Native American culture at the turn of the 20th century. By Sarah Rose Sharp, Hyperallergic, June 22, 2017
Pondering Edward Curtis: the frame captures the crime, American Friends Service Committee, May 18, 2016
Photographer Edward S. Curtis’s Southwest. By John O'Connor, NY Times, June 5, 2015.
Edward Curtis’ Epic Project to Photograph Native Americans. His 20-volume masterwork was hailed as “the most ambitious enterprise in publishing since the production of the King James Bible”. By Gilbert King. Smithsonian, March 21, 2012
Contemporary Native Photographers and the Edward Curtis Legacy, YouTube, 3.40 min.
Edward Curtis, Photographing the North American Indian, Smithsonian Magazine, YouTube, 4.11 min.

See work below by Edward S. Curtis.

Edward S. Curtis, 1868-1952, Shows As He Goes, half-length portrait. 6.75 in x 12 in

Edward S. Curtis created this half-length portrait of a young Indian while visiting Apache Indian groups from 1903-1907. Curtis was moved "to form a comprehensive and permanent record of the important tribes of the United States and Alaska that retain to a considerable degree their customs and traditions, before they vanished." Edward S. Curtis Collection in the Library of Congress.

Part Six - Will Wilson's work carries early photographic encounters into the present day.

Will Wilson

Will Wilson (b. 1969) is a Native American photographer and a citizen of the Navajo Nation.

"Will Wilson is a photographer and trans-customary artist who spent his formative years living on the Navajo Nation. His photography practice centers around the continuation and transformation of customary Indigenous cultural practice, countering the ‘archival impulse’ embedded within the historical imageries of Native peoples. Through various methods of photography, Wilson combines digital technology, historic photographic processes, performance, and installation around themes of environmental activism, the impacts of cultural and environmental change on Indigenous peoples, and the possibility of cultural survival and renewal." Native Arts and Culture Foundation.

Further background information

Will Wilson, Wikipedia
Will Wilson's Portraits of Survivance. The New Mexico photographer and Navajo Nation citizen has devoted years to surveying the environmental injustice against his people.
By Susannah Abbey Hyperallergic, June 22, 2022

See work by Will Wilson below

Will Wilson, photo of Enoch Kelly Haney, citizen of Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, Artist, former State Senator, and Principal Chief of Seminole Nation, (2016), CIPX, Photo/Synthesis, a project launched by Wilson in 2012. Its goal, in his words, is to “supplant the work of Edward Curtis, a settler photographer who took portraits of Indigenous people."

Edward Curtis, he told the Metropolitan Museum of Art, “created typologies of people in a strange ethnographic way, reinforcing a pseudoscience built on a foundation of white supremacy.”

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