Watching the Wagon Train
Artist
Frank Tenney Johnson
(American, 1874 - 1939)
Date1917
Mediumoil on canvas
Dimensions34 3/8 × 24 inches (87.3 × 61 cm)
Frame: 41 3/4 × 31 1/2 × 2 7/8 inches (106 × 80 × 7.3 cm)
Frame: 41 3/4 × 31 1/2 × 2 7/8 inches (106 × 80 × 7.3 cm)
Credit LineBequest of H.J. Lutcher Stark, 1965
Object number31.22.15
ClassificationsPaintings
DescriptionVertical oil painting depicting a family of Plains Indians, one on a white horse, standing in front of a group of three teepees and looking into the distance where there is a wagon train in front of mountains. The sky above is yellow and orange with pink and blue-purple clouds.Label TextJohnson portrayed ideas about expected changes to land in the American West. In the foreground of this painting, a family of Plains Indians stands near their homes, their tipis. They face away from us, directing our gaze to the far landscape. With small touches of white, the artist depicts wagons with settlers who will change everything. Twilight suggests the end of an era and the vanishing of a people. This was a popular theme in pictures of American Indians at the time. Such images have fostered false notions that Indian people have disappeared.
ProvenancePurchased July 8, 1958 through (C. Bland Jamison, Santa Fe, New Mexico) by H.J. Lutcher Stark [1887-1965]; bequeathed September 2, 1965 to the Nelda C. and H.J. Lutcher Stark Foundation; accessioned to the Stark Museum of Art
On View
Not on view
Frank Tenney Johnson
1918
Oscar Edmund Berninghaus
Frank Tenney Johnson
Frank Tenney Johnson
Frank Tenney Johnson
