The Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University in California will show an insider’s perspective on a legendary battle in US history this weekend with the opening of Red Horse: Drawings of the Battle of Little Bighorn (16 January).
Sometimes referred to as “Custer’s Last Stand”, the battle between Plains Native Americans against the US Army took place in what is now eastern Montana from 25 to 26 June 1876. Although it was a decisive early victory for the Native American fighters in what would be known as the Great Sioux War, the US government eventually wrested control of the land its had once promised the tribes.
In 1881, the Minneconjou Lakota Sioux warrior Red Horse, who fought in the battle, created a series of large-format watercolour, graphite and coloured pencil drawings on paper that depict the event in fine detail. The Smithsonian Institution’s National Anthropological Archives has loaned a dozen of these works for the show, organised by the Stanford political science professor Scott Sagan with the help of his student Sarah Sadlier, who is from the same branch of the Lakota Sioux tribe as Red Horse.
The works exemplify Ledger art, an evolution of traditional hide painting by Plains Native Americans, named for the ledger pages that often served as the support for the colourful, linear and narrative drawings. Red Horse’s drawings will remain on view through 9 May.
