Tipi Door

Datec.1900

Mediumcanvas, beads, wool fabric, leather and deer hoofs

Dimensions54 3/16 x 37 1/2 inches (137.7 x 95.2 cm)

Credit LineGift of Nelda C. Stark, 1977

Object number82.900.342

ClassificationsEthnographic

DescriptionCanvas decorated with circles of red wool capped with deer hoofs; horizontal beaded strip; hand-sewn, leather ties

Label TextIndigenous people of the Great Plains used the tipi as their home. Traditionally, buffalo skins made the covering. Later, canvas replaced the skins. The door was a separate piece. An inscription and the reported provenance of this tipi door trace its ownership to Sun Roads, a chief of the Arapaho. The Arapaho homelands had previously covered a section of the central Plains. In 1878, the United States Army moved the Northern Arapaho to a reservation in Wyoming. Artists Joseph Henry Sharp and Joseph Scheuerle painted portraits of Sun Roads. Scheuerle described him as a warrior and leader of the Ghost Dance movement.

ProvenanceThe son of Sunroads; purchased by Duhamel Company, Harness and Saddlery, Cowboy and Indian Traders, Rapid City, South Dakota; purchased by H.J. Lutcher Stark [1887-1965]; bequeathed September 2, 1965 to Nelda C. Stark [1909-1999]; gifted July 1, 1977 to the Nelda C. and H.J. Lutcher Stark Foundation, July 1, 1977; accessioned to the Stark Museum of Art

On View

Not on view