Page 102 - 2020 Russell Catalogue

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JOSEPH HENRY SHARP (1859–1953) Call of the War Chief
Call of the War Chief was likely inspired by a scene that Joseph Henry Sharp probably witnessed, perhaps even multiple times while living on the Crow reservation. In the first two decades of the last century, when the artist lived in a cabin (and had a studio) on the grounds of the Crow Agency, the warring days of the Crow tribe were well past. However, the Crow warrior tradition of honoring memories of its tribal history persisted long thereafter. Coincidentally, the land ceded to the tribe actually encompassed the Little Bighorn Battleground where Custer met his fate. An anthropological study conducted at
the time of Sharp’s residency speaks of active societies of military (or war) clubs in which there were customary visitations by members who would then recall orally their military experiences and other past accomplishments.
Call of the War Chief is an important oil painting Sharp beautifully executed during his mature period of artistic accomplishment in oil. Early in his career, Sharp had the benefit of extensive formal training in European painting techniques from the better part of a decade that he spent in Paris, Antwerp, and Munich, as well as a special trip to Spain to become familiar with the works of Diego Velázquez. The quality of this work strongly reflects that dedicated tutelage involving the fine works of the Old Masters and successful contemporary realists. As Sharp observed late in life, having taken such courses, he then “in 1893 skipped for the West and never regretted it.”
The composition itself incorporates some of Sharp’s favorite Crow Agency subjects, an encampment scene on the reservation where he had lived among the Crow during winters in his own cabin off and on for two decades. It is noteworthy that this particular work was painted more than a decade after he and his wife had relocated to Taos, New Mexico. Nevertheless, paintings of Crow encampment scenes remained a feature of his output even after his relocation south. This was, no doubt, due to his comfort with and intimate knowledge of the Crow people, their daily routines, and his respect for key aspects of their culture, including its high regard for proven warriors.
At 30 by 36 inches, the size of Call of the War Chief further signifies its importance in the mind-set of the artist. In addition, the title is noteworthy because it most probably is meant to be reflective of an era in which the warrior culture of the Crow Indian tribe was forged and memories of it were thereafter carefully maintained. That early period initially comprised much of the 1800s, when the Crow Indians counted the Blackfoot, Cheyenne, and Dakota Sioux among their mortal enemies. Conversely, the Hidatsa and Mandans were among their trusted allies.1
Renowned scholar Robert H. Lowie conducted an ethnological study of the Crow tribe was conducted during the first
two decades of the twentieth century. His resulting book, The Crow Indians, was published in 1935. In the preface, Lowie observes, “By 1907 when I first visited the Crow Reservation, southeast of Billings, Montana, the process [of engaging in actual warfare] had become essentially completed. The Indians had turned to tillers of soil, farming as best they could with such aid as the Government gave them. [But] Many still wore moccasins and some clung to the traditional style of dress....
“By 1907, of course, wars had long ceased, but not the war psychology. Men were still rated according to their valor. They proudly displayed their scars to a sympathetic inquirer and publicly told about their exploits at any large gathering. All old and middle-aged men had belonged to the military clubs. There were some who had served as scouts under Custer or Terry; ....
“In short, the culture I [Lowie] studied in the field seasons of 1907 and 1910–1916 was spiritually very much alive; and even in 1931, when I returned after a long absence, the rise of a literate generation and the advent of the automobile had not been able to kill it utterly. It is [was] a living culture.”2
What Lowie, the visiting anthropologist from New York’s American University and later the University of California at Berkeley, describes is probably what Joseph Henry Sharp also encountered in virtually the same time period. Thus, it is not surprising that he would look to capture a sense of such noteworthy occurrences in his art. Lowie’s comment about the persistence of a war psychology even in 1931 and later seems particularly relevant to this painting which Forest Fenn indicates was executed in 1932.
1 Peter H. Hassrick, The Life & Art of Joseph Henry Sharp, 2018, Wyoming, Buffalo Bill Center of the West, Cody.
2 Robert H. Lowie, he Crow Indians, 1935, https://books.google.com/books?id=Qwp8nvlwKkMC&pg=PR3&source=
A copy of
The Life & Art of Joseph Henry Sharp by Peter H. Hassrick
gbs_selected_pages&cad=3#v=onepage&q&f=false
will accompany this lot.