Faces from the Interior: The North American Portraits of Karl Bodmer

"In the early nineteenth century, Prince Maximilian Of Wied traveled the length of the Missouri River on an excursion to uncover what he called "the natural face of North America"-its landscapes, flora and fauna, and particularly its Native inhabitants. Among his small party was the young Swiss artist Karl Bodmer (1809-1893), who would prove to be one of the most accomplished and prolific artists to visit the American frontier. Departing St. Louis in April 1833, Bodmer and Maximilian would travel over 2,500 miles through the heart of North America before reaching Fort McKenzie in present-day Montana, spending time among the Omaha, Otoe, and Pawnee; the Yankton and Santee Sioux; and the Assiniboines, Plains Cree, Blackfeet, Piegans, Bloods, and Gros Ventre. At their winter quarters at Fort Clark, they made intimate acquaintances among the Mandan and Hidatsa. Bodmer's watercolors, executed in the field and upon his return to Europe, remain one of the most perceptive and compelling visual accounts of the American West, and are an invaluable record of the Missouri River and its Indigenous communities at a pivotal historic moment. Drawn from Joslyn Art Museum's renowned Maximilian-Bodmer Collection, this is the first publication to focus on Bodmer as a portraitist. The catalog includes essays examining Bodmer's artistic practice within the context of nineteenth-century ethnography; the international dissemination of his images; and the ongoing significance of his work to Indigenous communities. Over 50 watercolor portraits are reproduced, accompanied by a selection of the artist's landscapes, camp, and ceremonial sites"--