Sun Feather

or
Sun Flower

Generously provided by The Butler Institute of American Art

In January 1900, Joseph Butler made a second purchase of a set of seven portraits from Sharp. This was the greatest number of paintings that Sharp had sold to an individual at one time. Whether as a genuine gesture of appreciation or as a business ploy for future patronage, Sharp “presented,” as he wrote in his sales book, this portrait of a Pueblo girl to Butler. In the lower right hand corner, above his signature, Sharp wrote “copyright 1898.”

Butler showed Sun Feather in 1907 at the Youngstown, Ohio, YMCA exhibition, consisting of 326 Indian paintings from his collection. The strong profile portrait was mislabeled in the accompanying catalogue as “Sun Flower.”

Marie Watkins

Artist: Joseph Henry Sharp
Date: 1898
Catalogue Number: 343
Medium: oil on canvas
Inscriptions: LR: COPYRIGHT 1898 / BY / J.H.SHARP.

Dimensions: 13 x 10 in.
Credit Line: The Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, OH
Accession Number: 913-O-540
Subjects: Pueblo, child, portrait, profile

The artist; Joseph J. Butler, Jr., Youngstown, OH, 1902; present owner by purchase, 1913

Given the style of the signature and the artist's ascribed date of 1898, this must be a Pueblo girl and probably one from Taos. This is likely one of Sharp's earliest portraits of an Indian child.