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The Red Man

A work made of gum bichromate print.

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  • A work made of gum bichromate print.

Date:

c. 1900

Artist:

Gertrude Käsebier
American, 1852–1934

About this artwork

One of the leading Pictorialist photographers at the turn of the century, Gertrude Käsebier was known for softly focused, often allegorical images of women and children. In 1898 she began photographing the Sioux performers in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, a popular production featuring reenactments of the fading American Old West. By the turn of the century, Native Americans had been subjected to a series of intense armed conflicts, the restriction of tribal lands, and increased cultural assimilation, and many white Americans viewed them as an endangered people and harbored romantic visions of a disappearing “noble savage.” Käsebier, who had encountered Native Americans as a child in a Colorado frontier town, believed the subject of this photograph was “the last of a hundred”; she supposedly caught him off-guard in order to capture her vision of the archetypal Native American. Influential dealer and photographer Alfred Stieglitz published this image in 1903, in the opening issue of Camera Work.

Status

Currently Off View

Department

Photography and Media

Artist

Gertrude Käsebier

Title

The Red Man

Place

United States (Artist's nationality:)

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

Made 1895–1905

Medium

Gum bichromate print

Inscriptions

Unmarked recto; verso unchecked

Dimensions

Image/paper: 33.5 × 25.6 cm (13 1/4 × 10 1/8 in.)

Credit Line

Gift of Mina Turner

Reference Number

1973.16

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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