Along the Little Horn

 When asked to submit six paintings to the fine art exhibit at the Panama-California Exposition in San Diego in 1915, Sharp selected five large, complex figure studies and one landscape. In his monumental annual Cincinnati show, An Exhibition of Pictures of the West at the University Club a couple of years earlier, Sharp had mounted eighty-eight works of which twenty percent were landscapes. He had obviously been trending toward views of the West, making a statement that Indian portraits and genre scenes were only a part of his evolving oeuvre.

 

     Sharp’s inclination toward winter landscape had started at least a decade before he painted Along the Little Horn. An early version of winter's appeal, for example, resulted in an oil titled Winter's Coming On of 1904. (see Record 525) During the winter of 1906, he wrote to his friend and supporter William Gest at the Cincinnati Art Museum, that “Models are scarce these days, so I’m working at landscapes, etc. I can’t sail into a big landscape canvas yet with as much courage as I do a small head.” (Sharp to Gest, 1/22/06, Sharp Papers) By 1914, Sharp was evidently comfortable sailing into Along the Little Horn, which for Sharp is a relatively large canvas. It is also an inviting work with a clarity of atmosphere not seen in his earlier winter landscapes of Montana. Those tended to be soft and ethereal plein air canvases as if patterned after the works of his fellow Cincinnatian, John Twachtman. It also may have been at least partially a studio piece since Sharp mentions in his ledger books that it was a view "from House and River." (Sharp Papers)

 

     This painting was owned by Wyoming’s governor John B. Kendrick who may have seen it in San Diego at the exposition, or more likely discovered it in Sheridan at the Coffeen Teepee bookstore. The sale was consummated for $750 in January 1916 with Coffeen receiving a $150 commission according to the artist's sales ledger books. (Sharp Papers)

 

Peter H. Hassrick