Historical
HENRY INMAN (1801–1846), after JAMES OTTO LEWIS (1799–1858)
A Sioux Chief (Family Siouan, Tribe Sioux), c. 1837
Oil on canvas, 30 x 28 in.
EXHIBITED: Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York, October 12–November 17, 1984, A Festival of Western American Art at Hirschl & Adler, pp. 12, 18 no. 2–47, 19 illus. in color
EX COLL.: Thomas L. McKenney and James Hall, Philadelphia; to E. P. Tileston and Amor Hollingsworth, Boston, by 1837; to Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, Cambridge, 1882; to [Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York, 1985]; to private collection, 1985 until the present
Representing one of the finest artistic and anthropological records of the Native American, The McKenney and Hall Collection of Portraits of American Indians was the vision of one man, Thomas L. McKenney, an ardent supporter of Indian culture. McKenney, who by 1820 was the United States Superintendent of Indian Trade, conceived of the establishment of a national collection of Indian artifacts and records in Washington D. C., culled from memorabilia brought to the nation's capital during the 1820s by emissaries of various Indian tribes. Delegations of Indian tribes were continually visiting the nation’s capital during the 1820s, often to voice tribal concerns and negotiate treaties, and McKenney met with many of them. He took these opportunities not only to collect memorabilia, but also to have their portraits painted by Charles Bird King (1785–1862) for a government-sponsored Indian picture gallery. By 1830, King had painted over one-hundred portraits of American Indians from life. Other artists contributed portraits to the expanding Indian collection, including James Otto Lewis (1799–1858). The collection was initially housed in the War Department Building (McKenney was appointed director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs of the War Department in 1824) and attracted an enthusiastic group of visitors, both American and foreign. The collection was recognized as a valuable national resource and in 1858 was moved to a specially designed Gallery of Art in the new Smithsonian Institution on the Mall. Less than ten years later, a devastating fire at the Smithsonian Castle destroyed the original portraits.
Fortunately, the portraits survive in a set of replicas by the Philadelphia portrait painter Henry Inman.
McKenney envisioned a grand multi-volume publication that would reproduce the portraits. However, McKenney, a political supporter of John Calhoun, lost his position at the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1830 after Andrew Jackson assumed the presidency. McKenney moved to Philadelphia, took a job as a newspaper editor, and established a network of friends and supporters to assist in the eventual publication of the History of the American Indian Tribes of North America. Through allies still in Washington, McKenney was able to retrieve important documentary information about various Indians and their tribes, information that largely remined in the archives that he himself had established. McKenney commissioned Henry Inman to produce copies of the original portraits at the War Department, upon which the colored prints in his ambitious book could be based. By the end of 1833, Inman had completed over seventy-five copies.
Various personal and financial setbacks postponed publication of McKenney’s book. In 1836, James Hall of Cincinnati, Ohio, became McKenney’s partner and provided the necessary stimulus for completion. That year, in the hope of attracting potential subscribers, McKenney and Hall’s advertised and exhibited the Inman portraits at Masonic Hall in Philadelphia, along with several sample lithographs for the book. Between 1837 and 1844 three volumes of the History of the American Tribes of North America were published, containing lithographic reproductions of a large portion of the Inman portraits. It is likely that a fourth volume that would have included the remaining portraits was planned but never realized.
The published volumes in 1837 and 1838 met with great critical and financial success. McKenney even spoke of touring the paintings in Europe and selling them there for fabulous sums. This never came to fruition because of financial pressures following the Panic of 1837. The entire group of portraits were submitted to the Boston paper firm of Tileston and Hollingsworth as settlement of debts incurred in publication. In 1882, the firm donated the collection to the Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
