The Indian Legacy of Charles Bird King

"Charles Bird King is one of the least known--yet one of the most important-- artists of the precamera era in this country, rivaling George Catlin as a portrait painter who recorded the features and costumes of American Indians in the early days of the Republic. Between 1821 and 1842 King painted the portraits of more than one hundred prominent Indian leaders who were brought to Washington as guests of the government. The chiefs, who included Red Jacket, Pushmataha, and Black Hawk, were wined and dined and showered with presents as part of an elaborate effort to influence them to accept peacefully white expansion into their territories. Commissioned by Thomas L. McKenney, founder of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the paintings became known as the War Department gallery of Indian portraits. They were placed in the Smithsonian Institution in 1858. Although the entire collection was destroyed by fire in 1865, King had made replicas of his most important subjects. The author has located more than sixty of these King portraits, many of which are published here in color for the first time, along with sixteen recently discovered charcoal sketches by King"--Book jacket.