# The Signal Fire

- By: Ralph Albert Blakelock (born New York City 1847-died Elizabethtown, NY 1919)
- Date: 1885-1890
- Medium: oil on wood
- Classification: Paintings
- Dimensions: 14 x 10 in. (35.6 x 25.4 cm)
- Culture: Indians of North America
- Credit line: Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the family of Grace Strong Twining
- Museum: [Smithsonian Institution](https://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=71307)
- Rights: [CC0 (Smithsonian Open Access)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://invisiblenetwork.ai/thumbs/web/2f1cc408442e95a2a8d37fb2175454a0.jpg
- Who can see it: Tweens profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

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.