Hood Quarterly, autumn/winter 2010-11
25th Anniversary Issue
Joe Horse Capture, Associate Curator of Native American Art, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, and guest curator of the exhibition
The Hood Museum of Art has recently acquired a large group of drawings created by the Native American tribes of the Great Plains region. Through partial gift and purchase, this acquisition makes the Hood one of the largest repositories of ledger drawings in an art museum in the country. The Mark Lansburgh Collection (Dartmouth Class of 1949) features over 130 drawings from at least seven different Plains tribes and serves as a testament to the artistic creativity of Plains Indian artists. Commonly known as "ledger drawings," these works were created on lined and unlined paper that was originally bound in either sketchbooks or account books. During the latter half of the nineteenth century, Plains Indian men drew their battle and hunting exploits, courting scenes, and other scenes from their lives in these books, and these images provide an important insight into the world of the nineteenth century warrior-artist.
Mostly executed in pencil, the drawings themselves were created in a style that shows little or no background scenery but plenty of detail in the aspects that were important to the artist. Traditionally, men created pictographic works, and women, geometric designs. Before the introduction of paper and pencil, men drew or carved on stone and animal hides. Like ledger drawings, these scenes were mnemonic devices that were meant to be accompanied by a narrative from the owner. Unfortunately, nearly all of the original narratives are gone. Scholars who have specialized in this field have learned to "read" this fascinating visual language, so many of these stories created over a century ago can be retold. Graphically bold and carefully detailed, the drawings often depict a scene where the victor is the main subject, whether in battle or while courting.
These drawings were later removed from their original bound books, usually by dealers, because it is more profitable to sell them individually. Through Mark Lansburgh's efforts to collect as many individual pages from a specific book as he could, however, we can formulate a narrative of a complete book from his collection.
The exhibition is divided into several themes, including hunting, battle, ceremony, and daily life. Among its highlights are several drawings by the Apsaalooka man named White Swan, who was a scout for George Custer. He was working for Custer during the Battle of Little Big Horn and became well known for his association with that famous event. His drawings often feature U.S. soldiers on horseback and may reference particular participants in the battle. Though such heroic scenes of battle and horse-stealing were the primary themes of this type of drawing, scenes of daily life became increasingly common during the third quarter of the nineteenth century.
This exhibition, the first of its kind at the Hood, was coordinated in conjunction with the Leslie Center for the Humanities Institute titled Multiple Narratives in Plains Ledger Art: The Mark Lansburgh Collection, which will bring a number of major scholars in the field to Dartmouth College during fall 2010. See the calendar of events in this issue of the Quarterly for information about free public gallery talks offered throughout the fall in conjunction with the institute.
Related Exhibitions
- Native American Ledger Drawings from the Hood Museum of Art: The Mark Lansburgh Collection
- Contemporary Native American Ledger Art: Drawing on Tradition
- Picturing Change: The Impact of Ledger Drawing on Native American Art