Ledger art evocative portrayal of Native history
Alex Sakariassen
Montana Kaimin
Inside a cloth-bound ledger book, American Indian figures dance on pages more than one hundred years old.
Buffalo robes and elaborate masks adorn several of the graceful images. Some figures grace the backs of brilliant yellow and blue horses. The vibrant reds and greens of colored pencil throw each character into stark contrast with the age-browned pages. Eighteen such drawings constitute the book of American Indian ledger art located in the Mansfield Library archives.
“It was donated to us in 1962,” said Donna McCrea, Head of Archives at the University of Montana. “It received a little bit of research in the ‘70s, but nobody actually knew what we had or how significant it was.”
While in the process of moving the archive collection to the fourth floor of the Mansfield Library about two years ago, University archivists decided it was time for the piece to receive some attention.
“We thought that it might be time to have an expert take a look at the work,” McCrea said. “So we, at that time, sent it off to a couple of appraisers. What we discovered was the value of the piece. It’s been appraised at over a quarter of a million dollars.”
The book of American Indian art was donated to the Mansfield Library in 1962 by Genevieve Prochnow, whose father had obtained it while working at the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota during the winters of 1890 and 1891.
Careful analysis revealed the identity of the artist to be Walter Bone Shirt. This collection of colored pencil drawings is believed to be the Lakota artist’s only work currently in the hands of a public institution. Although many individual pieces of ledger art can be found in institutions throughout the country, cloth-bound ledger books such as this are unusual.
American Indian ledger art itself dates back to the late 1800s, when relations between Plains Indians and European Americans were characterized by conflict. In 1875, U.S. troops imprisoned 72 chiefs and warriors at Fort Marion, Florida.
The prisoners were supplied with ledger books and art utensils during their three-year internment, and encouraged to depict their customs, memories, and recent experiences through drawings.
“A U.S. army officer saw that many of the men were homesick and suffering under the conditions,” said Manuela Well-Off-Man, curator of art at the Montana Museum of Art and Culture on the UM campus. “He gave them the first ledger book paper and colored pencils so they could put down what they did in their former life; hunting, warfare against other tribes. They put down basically their memories of their former life.”
What began as a means of recording American Indian history quickly became a new form of art unique to the American Indian culture. The Museum possesses a piece of artwork done in the ledger book style, dated 1892, by artist Philip John. “Hunting Party,” as the piece is entitled, reveals some of the cultural history of American Indian life in the Bitterroot Valley.
Montana State University in Billings has also acquired a collection of ledger art drawings. The 66 pieces gathered in MSU’s archives are called the Barstow Collection, named for Charles H. Barstow, who encouraged Gros Ventre and Crow Indians in Montana to pursue ledger drawing in the late 1800s. The pieces were rediscovered in 1930, stored inside a trunk in Roundup.
“It relates very much to the early history of the people and movements in this exact part of the world,” said Jane Howell, Library Director at MSU Billings. “Plains Indian tribes were the people who were here for many, many centuries. They did not have extensive written history, so the pictorial history of everything from war-time scenes, events, costumes, horses, those kinds of things, is a really important record of life as it was before the white settlers were here.”
According to a press release issued by the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, while nineteenth-century warrior-artists documented the impact of conflict, captivity, and cultural domination in their ledger drawing, their twentieth-century descendants continued to use visual narratives on paper as a stepping stone into mainstream American fine arts practices. Today, many contemporary artists look back to the ledger drawings of their forefathers to create art that critiques America’s contested histories while also reconciling themselves to the cultural genocide of the past.
Unfortunately, the Walter Bone Shirt ledger book is simply too old and delicate to be handled by the public. Even putting it on display in an exhibition raises a few concerns.
“The ledger itself — because of the extraordinarily fragile nature of it — I think what we might want to do is some conservation work before we actually put it out on display,” McCrea said. “What I would like to do, when we have it digitized, we’ll definitely put on display high-quality digital images of the piece itself. It would be really great if, within a year, we could do really high quality digitization and conservation so that it lasts longer.”
Besides the possibility of a short-term display and the necessity of conservation work, McCrea has developed a few more concepts concerning the ledger book’s future.
“I do hope that we can have it featured in a special symposium or seminar, to share information about ledger art with a broader community. Maybe we would invite people from South Dakota to come and comment on it; or other institutions that have ledger art, either in the state or in the region, to come and participate in a symposium or colloquium of some sort, whether its about ledger art specifically or Native American art.”
The Walter Bone Shirt ledger book, with its century-old depictions of American Indian figures, has had a noticeable impact on the Mansfield Library and the individuals who have labored to learn more about it.
“What it represent in a single item is our commitment to working with other departments on campus, like Native American studies, anthropology, history, the departments that we’re here to serve. It’s been a single embodiment of what we do and our mission, which is to acquire and make remarkable materials available for scholars, for students, for the state of Montana, and for the world.”
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Last updated on April 23, 2005