Crows Fording the Little Horn

or
[Encampment of Crow Indians]; Camp on the LIttle Big Horn

Generously provided by Smithsonian American Art Museum

In November 1907, while Sharp was visiting one of his past pupils, Fra Dana, at her Wyoming ranch, he wrote to his long-time friend and supporter, Joseph Henry Gest, at the Cincinnati Art Museum. In the letter, he mentioned organizing a large traveling exhibition that would make stops in Chicago, St. Louis, and Indianapolis. (letter Sharp to Gest, 11/2/07, Sharp Papers) When he returned from Wyoming to the Crow Reservation shortly thereafter, he is thought to have painted this autumn scene for inclusion in that exhibition.

The traveling show actually opened in Portland, OR in February 1908. A reporter for the Oregonian newspaper visited the display and proclaimed that the artist was “universally conceded to be the greatest painter of Indians, besides being one of the finest landscape artists America has produced.” (Oregonian, 2/23/08) Sharp had admitted to Arthur Chapman, the author of the Oregonian review, that it was becoming increasingly difficult to get Indians to pose for their portraits. This, then, was a solution to that problem. He could set up his easel on the river bank and capture a whole group of mounted Crow Indians at once.

Peter H. Hassrick

Artist: Joseph Henry Sharp
Date: 1908
Catalogue Number: 241
Medium: oil on canvas
Inscriptions: LR: J.H.SHARP. 1908

Dimensions: 26 7/8 x 40 1/8 in.
Credit Line: Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC
Accession Number: 1985.66.362,159
Subjects: Big Horn, Crow, autumn, camp, group

The artist; [?]; Victor Justice Evans; present owner by bequest

This painting, Crows Fording the Little Horn, was exhibited as part a traveling show at several venues in the spring and summer of 1908 including The Closson Galleries in April in Cincinnati, Pictures of the West, and the St. Louis Museum of Fine Arts in an exhibit titled A Collection of Paintings by Mr. J. H. Sharp in June. It appeared again in 1912 at the University Club in An Exhibition of Pictures of the West in Cincinnati.

This painting relates compositionally to a photograph Sharp took at the time of an earlier Crow Fair, in 1906. (related image 241a) A small study for the painting was made by Sharp and was passed down by him to the Carolyn Riebeth family. (related image 241b)

Crows Fording the Little Horn

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