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Joseph H. Henry Sharp Catalogue

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Chief Spotted Elk

Over the years between 1900 and 1908 Sharp painted a number of portraits of this man, Dick Spotted Elk, son of the famous Spotted Elk/Big Foot who died in 1890 at the Wounded Knee Massacre.

 

The Smithsonian Institution owns two portraits of Spotted Elk. (see also #223) There was one other known portrait of Spotted Elk painted in 1905. (#547). One of these two 1905 versions was exhibited at the Fishel, Adler & Schwartz Galleries in New York in 1906, the Closson Galleries in Cincinnati, the St. Louis Museum of Fine Arts and the Cincinnati Museum in 1908 as well as the University Club in Cincinnati in 1912..

Chief Spotted Elk

Alternate Title:

Chief Spotted Elk - Sioux

Record ID: 222

Date: 1905

Medium: oil on canvas

Dimensions: 18 1/8 x 12 1/8 in.

Signature / Inscription: LR:J.H.SHARP. / 05

Owner: Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Accession Number: 1985.66.362,135


Provenance: The artist; [?]; Victor Justice Evans; present owner by bequest

Related

Created concurrently with Peter Hassrick's 2018 Whitney West publication The Life & Art of Joseph Henry Sharp, this online catalogue highlights more than 700 works by J.H. Sharp that are held in public collections.