Artwork: Attributed to Bears Heart (Nokkoist) b. 1851 d. 1882. Southern Cheyenne. Executed at Fort Marion ca. 1875-78. watercolour, graphite and coloured pencil on paper, width: 11 1/4”, height: 8 5/8”.
In the mid-nineteenth century, the American West was transformed into a mythical landscape, a wide open frontier of flora and fauna populated by a native race that was all that stood between newly-arriving American dreams of Manifest Destiny. Many had the idea that they were pioneers, making a “discovery,” and in doing so a new era came to pass. Herds of buffalo were systematically exterminated and native peoples were forced on to reservations. In brief, America effectively began to erase itself.
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Historically speaking, the term “Plains Indians” refers to tribal groups originating in the vast grasslands lying between the Rocky Mountains and the Mississippi River, including the Lakota, Cheyenne, Crow, Blackfoot, and Comanche, among others. Rich with traditions of oral and pictorial histories, the Plains Indians told their story as the environment demanded. The earliest records show petroglyphs and pictographic painting on rock walls; later they embellished buffalo hide tipi covers, shields, and personal garments with scenes bearing witness to major events. After the buffalo disappeared, they began to work on muslin, canvas, and commercial prepared hides, as well as on pages from lined accounting ledgers made widely available to Plains Indians peoples in the reservation period, roughly after 1860.
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A selection of these artworks is currently on view at Donald Ellis Gallery, New York (Booth #238). This is the gallery’s first time at The Armory Show, and is indicative of an rising interest of the Plains Indian ledger drawings (1865-1900). Ellis, who established his gallery in 1976, is considered the foremost dealer of historical Native American art. He remembers his first encounter with ledger drawings was in 1996 at and exhibition at the Drawing Center. He recalls, “It set New York on its ear. People flipped out. That planted the seed. I consider this one of the most important aspects of American art history.”
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