The Ford

At the turn of the century, the western frontier captured the imagination of many Americans whose only contact with the West was from romantic images created by artists traveling there. Henry Farny was a leading artist dedicated to capturing this "unknown" land, and his most prolific period dated between 1890-1906. Contrary to his contemporaries, Frederic Remington and Charles Russell, who portrayed the West typically by displaying the conflicts between the White Man and the Indians, Farny sought to show the Indians living in peace and serenity amongst themselves and with their land.

His small, delicate watercolors are highly detailed and subtly powerful. In The Ford, Farny displays an Indian on horseback crossing a shallow stream in a late autumn morning. Others from his tribe follow him at a distance over the rising. The scene is illuminated with the soft light of dawn, as the disappearing crescent moon hangs just above the horizon. The jewel-like quality of the water and the exquisite details of the trees are direct influences from Farny's admiration of Japanese prints.

Farny became internationally known for his illustrations of the Sioux, and after being adopted into their tribe, the Sioux Indians named him Long Boots and gave him the symbol of a circle enclosing a dot. This symbol accompanies his signature on The Ford.