Window mode follows your eyes with your camera, in this browser only: no picture or position leaves your device.
The Flute Player
Edwin Willard Deming (born Ashland, OH 1860-died New York City 1942)
n.d.
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Classification
- Paintings
- Dimensions
- 20 x 28 in. (50.8 x 71.1 cm.)
- Culture
- Indians of North America
- Museum
- Smithsonian Institution, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, Bequest of Victor Justice Evans
- Rights
- CC0 (Smithsonian Open Access), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Smithsonian Institution
About this work
Edwin Willard Deming grew up among the Winnebago Indians and devoted his career to picturing Native Americans as peaceful and noble figures. This scene shows the mythical “Indian Orpheus” charming wild animals with the sound of his flute. The brightly colored leaves blanketing the ground and the wide eyes of the animals create a magical kingdom far from the nation’s urban centers. With the onset of industrialization, imaginary, romantic views of Native American life were widely collected by comfortable, middle-class Americans.
