Exhibition takes distorted look at Native American culture
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By 1890, all of the Indians had been removed to the reservations and the White Man no longer saw him as a savage, but as noble beings living a traditional and archaic way of life.
“There was no collective guilt about what the White Man had done to destroy their way of life,” said Anita Ellis, a Cincinnati Art Museum curator speaking on “Vanishing Frontier.” “But there was a sense of collective sympathy because they had lost their way of life.”
Ellis said 1890 was a notable year because the U.S. Census had determined that there was no more land left to settle, and the act of taming the frontier — the courage it required and the “can-do” spirit that it employed — had up until that time determined the “American character,” the only thing that set the United States culture apart from European culture.
“It was a time for people to determine 'What is American?’” she said. “At the same time, the United States was experiencing the paradigm shift from the agrarian way of life to the industrial. The urban areas were becoming increasingly crammed and the pollution deadly. So white Americans began looking nostalgically at what they perceived to be an easier way of life.”
Artist Henry Farny, originally from western Pennsylvania, took a trip west in 1881 and came back with a large collection of Native American artifacts along with his own drawings and photographs that inspired his work for the rest of his life as he settled in Cincinnati to work.
At the same time, the Cincinnati-based Rookwood pottery company discovered that images of the noble Indians were just the ticket to get more men to purchase their wares.
Consequently, Farny and the Rookwood artists had a big influence on the way the rest of America saw the natives, even though it wasn’t necessarily an accurate portrayal.
“Vanishing Frontier” contains 39 Farny paintings and 52 examples of rookwood pottery along with 35 pieces of authentic Indian artifacts from the period in an attempt to help separate the facts from the legends.
- WHAT: “Vanishing Frontier: Rookwood, Farny and the American Indian
- WHERE: Cincinnati Art Museum, 953 Eden Park Dr., Cincinnati
- WHEN: Through Jan. 20
- COST: $8 adults; $6 students/seniors; $4 children
- MORE INFO: (513) 721-2787; www.cincinnatiartmuseum.org
