Photography by Amon Carter Museum of American Art

Indian Encampment

Artist Albert Bierstadt (1830 - 1902)

Date1862

MediumOil on canvas

Dimensions20 × 28 in. (50.8 × 71.1 cm)
Framed: 31 1/2 in. × 39 3/4 in. × 4 in.

ClassificationsPainting

Credit LineCrystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas, 2010.69

Signedl.r.: ABierstadt / 1862

Accession number 2010.69

On View

On view

ProvenanceHugh N. Camp [1827-1895], New York, NY; to John McKesson Camp (his son), New York, NY; to Gregory N. Camp [1898-1973] (his son), Watch Hill, RI; to Edith S. Campbell Camp (his wife); to (Sotheby Parke Bernet, New York, NY), April 25, 1980, lot 142; (O'Meara Gallery, Santa Fe, NM); (Jim Fowler's Period Gallery West, Scottsdale, AZ); to William C. Foxley [b. 1935], Denver, CO, 1982; John F. Eulich, Dallas, TX; (Sotheby's, New York, NY), The American West: The John F. Eulich Collection, May 20, 1998, lot 46; purchased by Richard A. Manoogian [b. 1936], Detroit, MI, 1998; purchased by a private foundation for Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR, 2004
Label TextAlbert Bierstadt encountered many Plains tribes on his first journey west in 1859. This painting, completed later in his New York studio, is not a scene he witnessed firsthand, but rather one created from his imagination and informed by cultural attitudes of the mid-nineteenth century. This type of image of Plains Indians bathed in sunset was so widespread that it conveyed a misconception that American Indians were a vanishing race—an erroneous belief that continues today.

Albert Bierstadt conoció muchas tribus de las Llanuras durante su primer viaje hacia el oeste en 1859. Esta pintura, completada posteriormente en su estudio de Nueva York, no es una escena presenciada de primera mano, sino imaginada por el artista y fundada en las actitudes culturales de mediados del siglo XIX. Este tipo de imagen del indígena de las Llanuras, iluminado por el sol poniente, fue tan generalizada que dio lugar a la creencia de que los indígenas iban camino de la extinción: una creencia errónea que continúa existiendo hoy.