McKenney and Hall at Saks Galleries

Thomas McKenney was the Superintendent of Indian Affairs under three Presidents -- Madison, Monroe & Adams.  A visitor to his office in the War Department near the White House would have seen a carefully collected ‘museum’ of Indian artifacts.  There were buffalo hides, ceremonial pipes, clothing and even a full size canoe over the doorway.  Importantly, there were also portrait paintings of many of the tribal Chiefs and Sub-Chiefs that had come to Washington to meet the Great White Father, accept gifts and peace medals and sign peace treaties.  Most of these portraits were done by the well known artist Charles Bird King.

Chon-Man-I-Case

17 x 12 inches

The ritual of inviting the Indian Chiefs to Washington was one of the original stated missions of the Lewis & Clark Expedition brilliantly initiated by Thomas Jefferson.  The underlying strategy presented to a hesitant Congress by Jefferson was to not only explore the vast continent West of the Mississippi for future settlement but more immediately to control the rivers and fur trade that had been previously dominated by French and English interests.

Chon-Ca-Pe

17 x 12 inches

However, McKenney’s ideas of treating the Indians fairly and with respect were ideologically not in line with the policies of the Andrew Jackson administration and therefore he was forced to resign his post in 1830.  By this time, however, he had already had the idea of making a series of lithographs after the collection of Indian portraits.  It was a project that took him the next fourteen years to complete -- through years of near bankruptcy, numerous printers and emotional distress.

His persistence was a blessing to the following generations because it happened that most of the original Charles Bird King paintings were destroyed in a fire at the then new Smithsonian Institution in 1865.  So the only record we have today of these early Indians are in fact the lithographs made by McKenney.  They stand as some of the finest and most important prints ever made in America.

For more information contact us at info@saksgalleries.com or 303.333.4144.

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