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The Signal Fire
Ralph Albert Blakelock (born New York City 1847-died Elizabethtown, NY 1919)
1885-1890
- Medium
- oil on wood
- Classification
- Paintings
- Dimensions
- 14 x 10 in. (35.6 x 25.4 cm)
- Culture
- Indians of North America
- Museum
- Smithsonian Institution, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the family of Grace Strong Twining
- 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
Ralph Albert Blakelock traveled the American West between 1869 and 1872 to sketch landscapes and native peoples. After he returned, he continued to paint western images inspired from the trip. In The Signal Fire a glowing moon rises above an American Indian perched on the edge of a cliff. The fire, crackling away below him, sends waves of wispy smoke in the air, possibly signaling someone on the tip of the mountain in the distance.
