Historic images of Native Americans by a Swiss artist find their way back to North Dakota

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — More than two dozen historic prints that depict a slice of Native American life and culture on the Upper Missouri River nearly 200 years ago will soon be more accessible to the public thanks to a gift that enabled a North Dakota organization to buy the rare aquatints.

The State Historical Society of North Dakota on Wednesday presented four of the 26 aquatints reproduced from 1839 to 1843 from works done by Swiss-born artist Karl Bodmer. He made the artwork during his journey from 1832 to 1834 with Prince Maximilian of Wied-Neuwied across the U.S., as far west as present-day Montana.

The Historical Society is reviewing the prints, which for some time had been stored at a San Francisco arthouse, and will develop a plan to exhibit the images, State Historical Society spokeswoman Kara Haff, said.

The aquatints are notable in part because they are more vibrant than most historic black and white imagery, State Historical Society Director Bill Peterson said.

“It’s not incredibly often that we get a chance to look at the richness of the color and the vibrancy and what the paintings represent and what the art represents,” Peterson said.

The aquatints are presumed to be from an original collection by Bodmer. Aquatints were common in his era and often were used to illustrate books, said David Borlaug, an owner of Masters Gallery in Bismarck, which facilitated the acquisition.

“An original painting would then be converted to metal, copper or steel, by an engraver, which is an art form all of its own, in reverse, and then they would pull a print, if you will, off that plate, usually with just one or two colors. Then the next set of artisans would come in, watercolor artists who would hand-tint, add all the colors to each image, one by one by one,” Borlaug said.

The images depict a variety of scenes and people, Haff said, including Fort Union, a Mandan village, an Arikara warrior, Mandan chief Mato Tope or Four Bears, the funeral scaffold of a Sioux chief, Mandan dog sledges, bison hunting, a scalp dance and travelers along the Missouri River.

The artworks are printed in textbooks and accessible in other formats and reproduced in other ways, Haff said. But it is rare to have ownership of prints made during the initial publishing, she said. Bodmer’s images were created for a book by Maximilian, “Travels in the Interior of North America,” she said.

Bodmer used ink and pencil for sketching but also used watercolors, Borlaug said.

His images are beautiful pieces and an important component of the history of the American West, said Dakota Goodhouse, a Native American historian and enrolled member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. But some of Bodmer’s artworks are posed and set up, which can misinform the viewer of the daily life of Native American peoples, he said.

“When Four Bears got all dressed up for Bodmer’s portrait, it’s not like he went about his everyday life completely dressed up,” Goodhouse said.

Given the Native American subjects, Goodhouse said he wishes a percentage of sales could go toward supporting contemporary Native American efforts to improve education, health and housing.

Several years after Bodmer’s journey, a smallpox epidemic in 1837 nearly destroyed the tribes he portrayed along the Upper Missouri. Amy Mossett, a member of the State Historical Board and education administrator for the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation’s Tribal Education, said entire families died and people had no time to save or pass along material possessions.

“So much was lost, and so when I look at these images, it just kind of preserves … the images of our culture when it was still very active and still very much alive,” said Mossett, a Mandan/Hidatsa member of the MHA Nation.

To have the aquatints back in the area where they originated may be serendipitous but also destiny, she said.

“Just thinking about the whole circular approach to life, I think there’s just a reason why they came back here and this is really where they belong,” Mossett said.

The State Historical Society is still tracing where the artworks’ provenance. North Dakota history lover Sam McQuade Jr. donated $150,000 to the State Historical Society of North Dakota Foundation, which worked with Masters Gallery and purchased the artworks and donated them to the State Historical Society for its permanent collection.