George De Forest Brush: the Indian Paintings May 24, 2009

Paintings by artist George de Forest Brush have been recently rediscovered, providing the inspiration for an exhibition of 21 works of art by this gifted but little-known 19th-century American artist. The subjects of these paintings are Indians -- ancient native North Americans and Meso-Americans. Brush began painting Indians out of his experience living with the Crow, Shoshone and Arapahoe in the West from 1881 to 1882. His paintings are exquisite miniaturist views of other worlds inhabited by ancient storytellers, carvers, weavers, painters and hunters. The artist's treatment of the subject is unique in American art from this period, when American Indians were typically treated in art principally as hostile peoples, aggressors against white settlers in the American West. These paintings, culled from private and museum collections, have never been shown together before.