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Indians in Council, California
Albert Bierstadt (born Solingen, Germany 1830-died New York City 1902)
ca. 1872
- Medium
- oil on paper on canvas
- Classification
- Paintings
- Dimensions
- 15 7/8 x 21 7/8 in. (40.4 x 55.5 cm.)
- Culture
- Indians of North America
- Museum
- Smithsonian Institution, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Marvin J. and Shirley F. Sonosky in memory of Harryette Cohn
- 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
Albert Bierstadt spent two years in California in the early 1870s, sketching the landscape of Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada. He was fascinated by the Native Americans he encountered on his journeys and made many sketches of their dwellings, dress, and weapons, including this painting of a group of Indian leaders. He felt that the Native American way of life was “rapidly passing away,” and that it was his duty “to tell his portion of their history.” (Letter from the artist, July 10, 1859, The Crayon, quoted in Anderson and Ferber, Albert Bierstadt: Art and Enterprise, 1990)
