Pictorial Elk Hide Painting

Label

Associated with cowboys and Indigenous communities in the American West, with laboring “horsepower” in blacksmith shops, or with mainstays of country leisure and exercise, the horse has long been a symbol of American identity. In the large hide at center, hunters on horseback pursue buffalo while others dance around an American flag. The inclusion of the flag in an era when Native Americans were denied citizenship suggests that this piece was made for sale to White tourists. This work and those that surround it reflect the often-unequal convergence of cultures as well as their respective perseverance. Indigenous artists found an opportunity to support themselves through artmaking, as did immigrants who found themselves in laboring shops or people of different races who steered cattle.

From the 2026 exhibition Nurturing Nationhood: Artistic Constructions of America, 1790-1940, curated by Haely Chang (Jane and Raphael Bernstein Associate Curator of East Asian Art), Evonne Fuselier (Hood Museum Board of Advisors Mutual Learning Fellow), Michael Hartman (former Jonathan Little Cohen Curator of American Art), Elizabeth Rice Mattison (Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Academic Programming and Curator of European Art), and Ashley B. Offill (Curator of Collections)

Course History

ANTH 12.13, Moving House in Prehistory, Benjamin Valentine, Spring 2015

Native American and Indigenous Studies 30.21, Native American Art and Material, Jami Powell, Spring 2025

Native American and Indigenous Studies 30.21, Native American Art and Material, Jami Powell, Spring 2025

Exhibition History

Nurturing Nationhood: Artistic Constructions of America, 1790-1940, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire; February 7-August 29, 2026.

Publication History

[Northern, Tamara]. "Native American Art". Hanover, New Hampshire: Hood Museum of Art, page 29 . (Published in conjunctionwith Gutman Gallery opening exhibition)

Provenance

Elk shot by Franklin U. Nelson, 1905; commissioned George Washakie to paint; given to his nephew, Roger E. Nelson; given to present collection, 1963.

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