Sundown Medicine Sweat

or
[Sundown Medicine Sweat on Little Big Horn, Montana]

Generously provided by Gilcrease Museum

By the time this painting was finished and ready for exhibition, Sharp had been living in Taos at least part time for seventeen years. His last lengthy visit to Montana had been in 1923. And yet, in his exhibition at the Traxel Art Galleries in the fall of 1927, in which there was a preponderance of floral works, he showed several classic Montana passages in paint. This is one of the most beautiful of that latter group.

A quiet autumn family scene, it cherishes everyday Plains Indian life. Dusk is approaching, and a group of mostly women and children assembles to enjoy the waning light as supper cooks over the fire. A sweat lodge appears between the two teepees and another across the river while a couple of women on the left prepare the lodge for a sweat. Nothing could be more suggestive of harmonious existence. The Little Big Horn River flows peacefully past and a hushed silence calls attention to halcyon days among the Crow Indians and the gentle side of nature in Montana.

Peter H. Hassrick

Artist: Joseph Henry Sharp
Date: ca. 1927; [1900]
Catalogue Number: 63
Medium: oil on canvas
Inscriptions: LR: JHSHARP.

Inscribed on verso: "Sundown Medicine Sweat-on Little Big Horn, Montana"

Inscribed on right stretcher bar: "1/2 mile from Battlefield-Cole 550"

Dimensions: 25 3/4 x 35 3/4 in.
Credit Line: Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, OK. Gift of the Thomas Gilcrease Foundation, 1955.
Accession Number: 0137.319
Subjects: Big Horn, camp, sweat, teepee

The artist; Thomas Gilcrease, Tulsa, OK; The Thomas Gilcrease Foundation, Tulsa, OK, 1955; present owner by gift

This oil is thought to be the work, titled Sundown Medicine Sweat, that Sharp featured in his annual late autumn exhibition at Cincinnati's Traxel Art Galleries in 1927. The show was titled Indian and Other Paintings.