Lot Essay
Having refined his skills while studying in the Paris studio of Jean-Leon Gérôme, George de Forest Brush welcomed the opportunity to travel to new territories and to find fresh subject matter. Brush gladly accepted an invitation from his brother Alfred to visit Wyoming, where an oil merchant who was an acquaintance intended to establish a ranch. In the spring of 1881 the two brothers set out for Wyoming, making side trips as far south and west as San Francisco. By the winter of 1881 they settled near Fort Washakie, Wyoming, where the artist could concentrate on his painting. Among his first Indian pieces, The Sioux Brave was probably executed in the spring of 1882. The work reflects Brush's recent training in Paris combined with a new discovery of purely American subject matter. The artist's treatment of the Sioux brave's figure has its roots in the rigorous study of the human form that the artist had learned from Gérôme.
In The Sioux Brave Brush sets the figure astride his horse at the top of an expansive rise of prairie. Peaceful in the isolation of the plain, the brave pauses to warm himself in the sunlight as it dramatically illuminates his face, chest, and thigh. The soft green tones seen across the landscape suggest that spring has recently arrived. Further indications of the season can be seen in the grasses and delicate wildflowers sprouting at the horse's hooves.
With its ennobling composition and reflective mood, The Sioux Brave represents Brush's homage to the American Indian. The artist calls attention to the harmony between native people and nature, underscoring the cycles of life, death, and rebirth by inserting the bleached skull in the foreground. In addition to suggesting the changes of the seasons, Brush comments on the Native American's environs, which were already suffering at the hands of western expansion.
In 1907 Charles H. Caffin captured the emotion of Brush's series of Indian paintings, "He found material for a story, archaeology, and strangeness in the North American Indians; and food for his imagination by discovering in their present condition a clue to their past. He attempted to recreate the spacious, empty world in which they lived a life that was truly primitive, unmixed with any alloy of the white man's bringing; and to interpret not only the externals of their life, but its inwardness, as with mingled stolidity and naviete these men-children looked out upon the phenomena of nature, fronted the mystery of death, and peered into the stirrings of their own souls. In these Indian pictures, far too few in number,...the imagination revealed is deep and elevated, and no one has approached him in the completeness with which he has suggested the solemn romance of these primitive conditions."(C.H. Caffin, The Story of American Painting, New York, 1907)
In a letter to Knoedler's in February 10, 1907, the artist discussed the painting: "As to particulars concerning it (The Sioux Brave), I painted it on the plains at Fort Waserkie, Wyoming. It was my first visit among the Indians. It was carefully studied from nature every bit of it. The costume was mine, also the pony. It has an increasing historical value, as that life has passed away, and very few artists have made very careful studies of the Indians. I have not seen it in many years as it hung in Mr. Sears private office." A photocopy of this letter will accompany the lot.
In The Sioux Brave Brush sets the figure astride his horse at the top of an expansive rise of prairie. Peaceful in the isolation of the plain, the brave pauses to warm himself in the sunlight as it dramatically illuminates his face, chest, and thigh. The soft green tones seen across the landscape suggest that spring has recently arrived. Further indications of the season can be seen in the grasses and delicate wildflowers sprouting at the horse's hooves.
With its ennobling composition and reflective mood, The Sioux Brave represents Brush's homage to the American Indian. The artist calls attention to the harmony between native people and nature, underscoring the cycles of life, death, and rebirth by inserting the bleached skull in the foreground. In addition to suggesting the changes of the seasons, Brush comments on the Native American's environs, which were already suffering at the hands of western expansion.
In 1907 Charles H. Caffin captured the emotion of Brush's series of Indian paintings, "He found material for a story, archaeology, and strangeness in the North American Indians; and food for his imagination by discovering in their present condition a clue to their past. He attempted to recreate the spacious, empty world in which they lived a life that was truly primitive, unmixed with any alloy of the white man's bringing; and to interpret not only the externals of their life, but its inwardness, as with mingled stolidity and naviete these men-children looked out upon the phenomena of nature, fronted the mystery of death, and peered into the stirrings of their own souls. In these Indian pictures, far too few in number,...the imagination revealed is deep and elevated, and no one has approached him in the completeness with which he has suggested the solemn romance of these primitive conditions."(C.H. Caffin, The Story of American Painting, New York, 1907)
In a letter to Knoedler's in February 10, 1907, the artist discussed the painting: "As to particulars concerning it (The Sioux Brave), I painted it on the plains at Fort Waserkie, Wyoming. It was my first visit among the Indians. It was carefully studied from nature every bit of it. The costume was mine, also the pony. It has an increasing historical value, as that life has passed away, and very few artists have made very careful studies of the Indians. I have not seen it in many years as it hung in Mr. Sears private office." A photocopy of this letter will accompany the lot.