| |
Teepee Smoke
Part 4
Reprinted courtesy Western Art Collector
January 2008
After Travels through Europe to further master his craft, Joseph Henry Sharp again felt the pull toward New Mexico.
J. H. Sharp, Camp on the Little Big Horn, oil, 27 x 40”
PHOTO COURTESY COLLECTION NATIONAL MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, WASHINGTON, D.C.
By 1890 Sharp’s studio sales
increased, and with the added
earnings from his commission
work, he and his wife Addie were able to
save enough money to spend the coming
summer months in Taos.
After staying in Santa Fe for a few weeks,
Sharp and Addie rented a wagon and
drove to Taos Pueblo. Of the 401 Indians
residing in the pueblo in 1890, only five
could read, write, and speak English, and
of the 387 who spoke Spanish, only one
could read and write it. Their primary
language was Tiwa, a complex language
which sounded to outsiders like a series
of grunts and vocal lunges. Although lipreading
Tiwa was impossible, even with his
hearing impairment Sharp was somehow
able to understand more in a conversation
with the Indians than those who could
hear but did not understand the language.
Sharp enjoyed painting Indian portraits,
or “heads” as he called them, and did not
limit himself to Taos Indians. In 1890, the
total population of the nineteen pueblos
in the New Mexico territory was 8,287; in
addition, there were 5,169 Navajos and
1,321 Jicarilla and Mescalero Apaches.
Sharp traveled by buckboard to many
of their reservations to paint and sketch
before he and Addie returned to Cincinnati
at summer’s end.
J. H. Sharp, Lament for the Dead, oil, 33 x 47”
PHOTO COURTESY GILCREASE MUSEUM, TULSA, OK
A new pattern was now becoming
visible in Sharp’s work. He completed a
painting that typified an attitude toward the
Indians that would be found in many of his
future works. Lament for the Dead shows
an Indian mourning in the night, her arms
uplifted in grief.
Sharp’s numerous burial scenes are
not only portrayals of human suffering
and grief, but are also metaphors for the
death of the Indian way of life. Paintings
such as Lament for the Dead always depict “the old ways,” and although in reality
there might have been a telegraph pole or
kerosene lamp or train in the background,
Sharp never put it in the painting.
Since Sharp produced the etchings
while in Cincinnati, where Indian models
were not available, he usually referred to
his collection of photographs, oils painted
during his summers out West, or other
etchings. His natural ability with this
technique resulted in beautiful etchings
remarkable for their composition and facial
likenesses. But the plates were made only
for the joy of the experience. He pulled a
total of 23 etchings of Bull Thigh, but only
a few each from the other plates.
J. H. Sharp, Soaring Eagle, oil, 20 x 10”
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE COLLECTION OF PATRICIA AND ROGER FRY, CINCINNATI, OH
Summer rolled around again, and it
was back to the west for Sharp and Addie.
They set up housekeeping in Taos in a
convenient old adobe about three miles
from the pueblo. Although it was only
Sharp’s second summer in Taos and his
third visit in six years, newspapers were
already calling in an “annual trip.”
Back in his beloved Indian country,
the land of manana, Sharp felt relaxed
and buoyant once more, pleased to
be away from the noise and dampness
of Cincinnati. Now well known to the
Indians, the artist found himself besieged
by potential subjects; often he would
awaken in the morning to discover a
dozen or more Indians—men, women
and children-waiting for him to begin
work, each one anxious to be selected as
the day’s model. They loved tobacco, and
Sharp kept an ample supply of cigarettes
and cigars. Frequently several would sit
smoking in the studio while he painted
one of their friends. Soon the room would
be so clouded with smoke that he would have to pause in his work, shoo the Indians
outside, and allow the room to air before
continuing.
J. H. Sharp, Standing Deer, etching, 5 x 3”
Sharp experimented with different media, making at least 21
etchings, one dry point and one aquatint.
PHOTO COURTESY OF FORREST FENN
One day he was visited by about 30
braves dressed in tribal finery because
they had just come from a dance at the
pueblo. They gathered around him as he
worked, grinning and nudging one another
as they wandered curiously about the
studio. When they had been entertained
to their satisfaction, they suddenly rushed
outside, mounted their waiting ponies, and
thundered away, whooping and hollering
in a swirl of dust while Sharp stood by,
accepting their behavior patiently and
without complaint.
Understanding the Indians was an
important part of Sharp’s business. Although
Alexis Compera, a Frenchman, had painted
in Taos in 1879, Charles Craig had visited
there in 1881, and Henry Poore, who
wasn’t much of an artist, was there briefly
in 1890, Sharp was the first artist to spend
any length of time painting in Taos.
J. H. Sharp, American Horse—Cheyenne Chief, oil, 14 x 10”
PHOTO COURTESY COLLECTION OF THE PHOEBE APPERSON HEARST MUSEUM OF
ANTHROPOLOGY AND THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
American Horse, wearing an army officer’s coat, strikes a serious
pose for Sharp’s camera.
PHOTO COURTESY OF FORREST FENN
Of all the models who posed for Sharp
in Taos, his favorite was Soaring Eagle.
Their first encounter occurred one morning
when the Indian peered in the window of
Sharp’s adobe house, then tried the door,
and receiving no response, sat down to
wait until someone was up and about.
When Sharp finally opened the door, he
found Soaring Eagle standing there with
two eggs in his hands. He walked the three
miles from the pueblo to offer the eggs as a
gesture of friendship. Sharp accepted them
warmly and thus began a close relationship
that lasted for many years. Soaring Eagle
was the first Southwestern Indian whose
portrait Sharp painted. Although the Indian
was usually reliable, there were times when
the artist was disappointed because Soaring
Eagle would fail to appear for a scheduled
sitting. The Indian knew that the two dollars
he received from the artist for each sitting
was more than adequate pay; nevertheless,
he often pleaded to leave early, to be paid
more, or to borrow small sums of money
for coffee and sugar, or for some allegedly
sick relative.
Sharp usually capitulated, unwilling
to strain an otherwise beautiful working
relationship. And his patience was
rewarded. One afternoon when Sharp was
painting on the open plain about two miles
west of the pueblo, Soaring Eagle came
riding up on his pony and persuaded the
artist—paint box and easel in hand—to
mount up behind him. The Indian spurred
his pony and they took off like a shot. Sharp
hung on desperately, clutching his box and
easel with one arm and his friend with the
other. The Indian chuckled all the way,
then as abruptly as he had started, drew
the pony to a stop, causing Sharp to half
tumble to the ground. The artist was furious
until he looked ahead and saw a hundred
or more braves preparing for a rabbit hunt.
He realized that Soaring Eagle had wanted
him to see the Indians in a natural setting,
a scene much more interesting than any he
could have imagined.
Sharp had hundreds of teepee photographs.
The summer of 1898 was especially
productive for Sharp. For the last three
years he had averaged two paintings
a week and would continue to do so
for the next forty years. Many of the “heads” he painted were duplicated later
in monotypes, and his dance scenes and
landscapes were developed further on
larger canvases completed during the
cold winter months in Cincinnati.
Sharp viewed the Indian as an equal,
and his paintings lend dignity to everyday
scenes such as the shelling of corn,
of the handsome maidens Crucita and
Leaf Down sitting on bancos in soulful
repose. However, the half-clothed braves
from Taos occasionally seem to be
standing in stuff, awkward poses. In these
paintings, Sharp seems to have been
more preoccupied with the way the color
and light glanced off his model’s red skin
than with the personality or activity of the
model. He once commented to a reporter
that Pueblo Indians did not interest him
as subjects until he “got them in the sun
or by the firelight.”
About Forrest Fenn:
Forrest Fenn grew up in the wilds
of Montana where he began finding
arrowheads and other small Indian
artifacts. His hobby developed into
a career of collecting, buying, selling
and trading not only artifacts but also
weapons, weavings and pots. The
collection grew, the reputation grew,
and the hobby grew into a business.
Forrest finally opened a trading post
that expanded to include sculpture
and paintings. The collector became a
dealer and he built a large, beautiful
gallery which included works by
Joseph Henry Sharp.
The images reproduced here are from the book
Teepee Smoke A New Look Into the Life and
Work of Joseph Henry Sharp originally published
in 1983 by One Horse Land & Cattle Co. with kind
permission Forrest Fenn. Copies of this book can be
purchased online at www.oldsantafetradingco.com
|
