Worthington Whittredge

(1820-1910)

Landscape with Teepee and Indians 6 5/8 x 11 5/8 in. (16.8 x 29.5 cm.)

Footnotes

Provenance
Alexander Gallery, New York.
Private collection, acquired from the above, 1996.
Sale, Sotheby's, New York, May 20, 2015, lot 38, sold by the above.
Private collection, acquired at the above sale.
Acquired by the present owner from the above.

"Western Landscapes occupy an unusually prominent place in the oeuvre of Worthington Whittredge for a self-proclaimed member of the Hudson River School. Executed over an eleven-year span, they chart the artist's progress at the height of his career, when he was considered among America's premier landscape painters. Their legacy consists of over forty oil sketches and studio paintings." (A. Janson, Worthington Whittredge, New York, 1989, p. 111.)

In June of 1866, Worthington Whittredge ventured west for the first time at the invitation of General John Pope (1822-1892), to accompany his survey of the great plains and southwestern territories. Leaving out of Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, they headed off toward Kearney, Nebraska, most likely along the Oregon Trail. Once in Kearney, they forded up the Platte River until they reached the confluence of the North and South Platte Rivers, choosing to follow the South into Colorado towards Fort Collins and then Denver. After a quick rest in Denver, the group headed down the Front Range and crossing over the Rocky Mountain range near the Spanish Peaks to join the Santa Fe Trail. They explored New Mexico extensively before returning on the Cimarron trail to Fort Riley, Kansas, where Whittredge caught a train on the Southern Pacific Railroad back to New York. To document the light and atmosphere on the journey, Whittredge created numerous sketches on half sheets of paper, approximately 10 x 23 inches in size. These sheets were highly portable and the ideal size to capture the seemingly endless horizontal expanses of the Great Plains.

Once back in New York, Whittredge used the sketches and transformed them into oil paintings. This adventure left a profound impression on the artist and in his own words, "I had never seen the plains or anything like them. They impressed me deeply. I cared more for them than for the mountains, and very few of my Western pictures have been produced from sketches made in the mountains, but rather from those made on the plains with mountains in the distance. Whoever crossed the plains at that period, not withstanding its herds of buffalo and flocks of antelope, its wild horses, deer and fleet rabbits, could hardly fail to be impressed with its vastness and silence and the appearance everywhere of an innocent, primitive existence." (W. Whittredge, ed. J. I. H. Baur, Autobiography, New York, 1942, p. 45.)

In this jewel-box example, Whittredge depicts an intimate scene of Native Americans at camp. In the immediate foreground, a group of natives are going about the daily tasks of cooking and tending to camp around a tipi. The tipi is a structure specific to the native tribes of the Great Plains that can be distinguished from other conical tents by the smoke flaps at the top of the structure, as seen in the present work. The tipi was an essential part of the nomadic tradition of the Plains tribes, as it was highly durable, easy to assemble/disassemble, and most importantly, very portable. Just beyond the structure, a native warrior on horseback is returning to camp, spear in hand. The low, horizon line and dramatic, cloud filled sky captures the vastness of the region. Unlike all other works by Whittredge that depict Native Americans, the present work presents the figures much closer to the viewer, indicating a level of understanding and affection that the artist had with his subjects. At this time in history, the tensions between the itinerant Native Americans of the Great Plains and Mountain West and the immigrants settling into the region was palpable. These Native tribes and settlers were in ongoing conflict over land and resources, so they were naturally wary to allow close physical proximity. Whittredge's reverent depictions of the indigenous people capture the nomadic culture and lifestyle of a people that would be tragically extinguished by the end of the century.

Executed immediately following the bloody and destructive Civil War and whilst coping with a country uncertain of its future, the untamed Western territories provided a source of hope for a nation in search of a new identity. Whittredge's paintings of the unpolished lands and inhabitants of the American West, such as Landscape with Teepee and Indians, present to the viewer his unblemished vision and unbridled enthusiasm for all he had experienced on his journey out West, and encouraged others to do the same.