Chief Blackbird

Details

ADOLPH ALEXANDER WEINMAN (1870-1952)
Chief Blackbird
inscribed 'CHIEF/BLACK/BIRD./OGALALLA [sic]/SIOUX./A·A·WEINMAN' (along the proper left shoulder)—stamped with foundry mark 'ROMAN BRONZE WORKS N.Y.' (along the base)
bronze with dark brown patina
17 in. (43.2 cm.) high
Modeled in 1903.

Literature

P.J. Broder, Bronzes of the American West, New York, 1974, pp. 197-99, pl. 201, another example illustrated.
The Brooklyn Museum, The American Renaissance, 1876-1917, Brooklyn, New York, 1979, p. 228, no. 70, another example illustrated.
Birmingham Museum of Art, Art of the American West, North Birmingham, Alabama, 1983, pp. 34-35, no. 25, another example illustrated.
G.A. Reynolds, American Bronze Sculpture: 1850 to the Present, exhibition catalogue, Newark, New Jersey, 1984, p. 32, another example illustrated.
S.E. Menconi, Uncommon Spirit: Sculpture in America 1800-1940, exhibition catalogue, New York, 1989, pp. 46-47, another example illustrated (as Chief Blackbird, Ogalalla [sic] Sioux).
L.D. Rosenfeld, A Century of American Sculpture: The Roman Bronze Works Foundry, Atglen, Pennsylvania, 2002, pp. 105-06, another example illustrated.

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Lot Essay

The present work is related to Adolph Weinman's large sculptural group, Destiny of the Red Man, created for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in 1904. Originally displayed in plaster, the work was eventually cast in bronze. According to Lisa N. Peters, "Chief Blackbird was created by Weinman either as a study for his Destiny group or as an outgrowth of the commission...the sculpture is a portrait of an individual Weinman knew personally. The artist met the chief when he was a member of Colonel Cummings's Wild West Show...An Ogalala Sioux, the chief had endured along with his tribe the tragic loss of their ancestral lands as they were pushed off onto reservation...In his characterization, Weinman, who called Blackbird 'a stoic, if ever there was one,' conveyed a sense of the struggles and perseverance that has shaped the chief's life." (A Personal Gathering: Paintings and Sculpture from the Collection of William I. Koch, exhibition catalogue, Wichita, Kansas, 1996, p. 140)

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