Connections: The Blackfeet and Winold Reiss
The artworks presented in this exhibition showcase connections between Blackfeet people and German American modernist artist Winold Reiss (1886-1953). Some individuals and families from the Blackfeet Nation formed decades-long relationships with Reiss during his many visits to Blackfoot territory from New York between 1920 and 1948. This exhibition puts nine of Reiss’s original pastel portraits into conversation with the art and belongings of Blackfeet people from the collection of the Museum of the Plains Indian.
Many Blackfeet people worked for Reiss as portrait models. The most recognizable portraits are those that the Great Northern Railway Company purchased from Reiss and reproduced in advertisements for its resorts and tour operations in Glacier National Park. These portraits connect us with Blackfeet individuals who grappled with the imposition of the tourism industry on their traditional territory in the early twentieth century. As iconic images, they circulated widely in North America and internationally. This exhibition reconnects the portraits with their community and families.
Lesser-known connections are emphasized by bringing the portraits together with art and objects from the museum’s collection. As a focal point in this exhibition, the works of some of the Blackfeet artists who studied art and design with Reiss have been gathered and displayed for the first time. During the summers of 1931 and 1934-37, Reiss operated an art school in Blackfoot territory near Glacier National Park. Artists and models from the Blackfoot Confederacy and visiting artists from across North America and Europe were involved in the school. In the mid-1930s, some onlookers referred to this lively intercultural scene as an “art colony.”
Blackfeet artists significantly impacted Reiss’s artistic practice. He appreciated the sophisticated designs and rich vocabulary of forms that he saw in their works. This is apparent when Reiss’s portraits are shown alongside the Blackfeet art that inspired him. Just as Reiss achieved a striking likeness in the faces of his subjects, he also faithfully rendered the bold geometries in Blackfoot beadwork and painting, and the figures and compositions used in war art. This influence went beyond Reiss’s portraiture, as he used the motifs and strategies of Blackfeet artists in some of his mural and design projects.
A versatile artist, designer, and teacher, Reiss’s career is hard to categorize. He created hundreds of portraits during his lifetime. In addition to his vibrant, popular images of Blackfeet people, Reiss is also renowned for his 1920s portrait series featuring some of the Black American artists, writers, and intellectuals associated with the Harlem Renaissance. He also painted landscapes, abstractions, and murals, and he was as prolific a designer as he was an artist. His wide-ranging body of design work encompasses everything from graphic designs and illustrations for posters and publications, to furniture and textile design, to the decoration of largescale commercial interiors. Reiss’s eclecticism was rooted in his arts training in Germany. Born in the city of Karlsruhe, Reiss’s first art teacher was his father Fritz, an artist noted for paintings of German landscapes and people. Before immigrating to the United States in 1913, Reiss studied in Munich, where he was immersed in European Arts and Crafts movements and theories. Reiss embraced a variety of disciplines and he rejected hierarchical distinctions between the so-called fine arts (painting and sculpture) and applied arts or craft. It is no wonder that he admired the practices of Blackfeet artists who produced beautiful and meaningful works for a variety of purposes, from artworks for display, to items with everyday uses, to ceremonial objects.
This exhibition focuses on connections between members of the Blackfeet Nation and Reiss. However, Reiss also engaged with people from other communities in the Blackfoot Confederacy. The Confederacy includes the Blackfeet Nation, Kainai Nation, Piikani Nation and Siksika Nation and its traditional territory stretches from the North Saskatchewan River to the Yellowstone River. We have used Blackfeet names in the exhibition text when they were shared with us. The āasāisstto Language Society generously provided some of the translations. We welcome feedback about these individuals and your connections to them. What connections do you see in the exhibition?
Curated by Renee Bear Medicine and Heather Caverhill, this exhibition was made possible through a partnership between the Blackfeet Nation, Glacier National Park Conservancy, the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway Foundation, and the Museum of the Plains Indian. The Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway Foundation generously loaned most of the portraits in this exhibition to the Museum of the Plains Indian.
Two Guns White Calf
John Two Guns White Calf (1872–1934) was the son of Blackfeet Chief White Calf. He is one of the most recognizable Blackfeet people, as many artists and photographers created portraits of him during the early decades of the twentieth century. Two Guns White Calf worked for the Great Northern Railway Company from the 1910s to the 1930s. He was paid to interact with guests at the railway company’s resorts in Glacier National Park, and also to travel and represent the company at special events.
Two Guns White Calf met Reiss in 1920 when the artist traveled to Browning for the first time. Reiss created at least four portraits of Two Guns White Calf in the 1920s and 1930s. This pastel portrait was among the first artworks that Great Northern Railway Company purchased from Reiss in 1927.
In the background, Reiss has represented a Blackfoot war story painting. Reiss included the motifs from war art in several portraits of Blackfeet people. He also used the forms and composition strategies of war art in other projects including his designs for the interior of the Longchamps Restaurant in New York in the 1930s.
This is the only portrait in the exhibition that is part of the Museum of the Plains Indian’s collection. The Louis Hill Foundation donated this portrait to the museum along with many artworks and objects made by Blackfeet people.
The Great Northern Railway Company began distributing calendars using Winold Reiss's portraits in 1928 in an effort to encourage tourism at Glacier National Park. This calendar depicts Chief Short Man, a Blackfeet warrior.
Gift of Florence L. Atkinson
Wades In The Water
Wades In The Water (So’yiinna c. 1870s–1947) was a respected Blackfeet leader and warrior. As a young man, he experienced buffalo hunts, raids, and battles. He is remembered as one of the last Blackfeet people to take a scalp in warfare. During the early decades of the twentieth century, he was the Tribal police chief for the Blackfeet Nation. His wife Julia Wades In The Water (Under Owl Woman, Staa’tssipisstaakii) worked alongside him policing and operating the community jail. Wades In The Water was a member of the Crazy Dogs Society, a Blackfeet society responsible for peacekeeping and maintaining order. As police officers, Wades In The Water and Julia drew from the values and methods of the Crazy Dogs Society to resolve conflicts and uphold the law in their community.
Wades In The Water and Julia were part of the generation of Blackfeet people who recalled life before the reservation era. Members of their family recall that they generously shared their knowledge, wisdom, and spirituality to ensure the survival and continuity of Blackfeet culture. Later in their lives, they spent summers working for the Great Northern Railway Company in Glacier National Park. They educated Park visitors about Blackfeet histories and culture through storytelling, dances, and songs.
Wades In The Water was among the many important Blackfeet leaders who worked as models for Reiss over the years. In this portrait he expresses his status and identity by posing in his regalia. Notice Reiss’s detailed rendering of the textures in the ermine skins, fringe, and feathers in the attire. By contrast, he used flattened blocks of color to showcase the vibrant geometric designs in the quillwork.
The Great Northern Railway Company purchased the original pastel portrait of Wades In the Water from Reiss to use for its marketing. It was reproduced and circulated in various forms including postcards, collectible prints, and playing cards. It also appeared in several publications. The Great Northern used Wades In The Water’s portrait as the signature image on its 1945 calendar advertising the Empire Builder Route from Chicago to the Pacific Northwest, via Glacier National Park. From 1928 until the late 1950s, the Great Northern used Reiss’s portraits of members of the Blackfoot Confederacy in its immensely popular annual calendars. Where have you seen these portraits?
This Blackfeet-style stand-up bonnet has 27 eagle feathers adorned with red horsehair pendants. Many of the feather ribs, which were originally quilled, have been covered with colored thread. The headband is decorated with white and brown weasel tails. An arrow is placed along the feathers of the bonnet.
Chief Wades In The Water received the bonnet by transfer. He believed this bonnet was originally owned by Lame Bull due to the arrow on the bonnet. Lame Bull was shot in the head with an arrow, which was later attached to his feather bonnet by his wife.
Purchased from Chief Wades In The Water, 1942
This bandolier bag features a front pocket opening, pink satin lining, and floral beadwork design. Bandoliers such as this were used to carry everyday items and tools.
Purchased from Edward Manville
This Tribal Police Chief uniform includes a jacket, two hats, a hat pin, and a set of jail keys. Wades In The Water was appointed Chief of the Blackfeet Tribal Police by 1905. He then appointed his wife, Julia, to the Tribal police force, where they would serve together from 1905 into the 1930s.
Purchased from Chief Wades In The Water’s daughter, Nora Spanish, 1968
Under Owl Woman
Julia Wades In the Water (Under Owl Woman, Staa’tssipisstaakii, c. 1873–1956) is celebrated as the first Native American woman to serve as a police officer in the United States. Blackfeet people remember her as kind, devoted to her family and the safety of her community, and an excellent marksman.
Julia was renowned for her complex beadwork and quillwork. One of her intricately beaded purses is in the collection of the Museum of the Plains Indian. Julia’s art practice is showcased by bringing this original work together with Reiss’s portrait.
Julia modeled for Reiss wearing a richly beaded blue dress, which she wore to important public events and meetings. She posed with a small purse that is beaded with the Blackfoot mountain design. Reiss did not highlight the details or the textures in Julia’s beadwork. Instead, he represented her dress and purse using flattened blocks of color, emphasizing the bold geometric designs. The Great Northern Railway Company purchased the portrait for use in its marketing and promotions, including its annual calendar in 1946.
Julia started working as a life model for Reiss in the 1930s when he operated his summer art school in Blackfoot territory. Other members of Julia’s family modeled for Reiss as well, including her granddaughter, Ethel. In addition to posing for Reiss wearing her own beadwork, Julia made garments that others wore when they worked for Reiss. According to her great granddaughter Cheryle (Cookie) Cobell Zwang, over the years the Wades In The Waters’ family and Reiss developed a “friendship that lasted for many years.”
This small handbag is fully beaded on both sides, with centered designs and blue background colors.
Purchased from Julia’s daughter, Nora Spanish, 1967
The Great Northern Railway Company reproduced Winold Reiss’s portraits of Blackfeet people to create advertisements and souvenirs. Portraits of Julia Wades In The Water, Chief Wades In The Water, Buckskin Pinto Woman, and Chief Middle Rider were made into playing cards. These decks of cards were sold to visitors of Glacier National Park.
The deck of cards in the red velvet case features Chief Wades In The Water and Julia Wades In The Water.
The deck of cards in the blue velvet case features Buckskin Pinto Woman and Chief Middle Rider.
Gift of Ruth Christensen, 1996
Connections: The Blackfeet, Winold Reiss, and The Great Northern Railway Company
Reiss visited the Blackfeet Nation’s Reservation for the first time in the winter of 1920. His expectations of Blackfeet people were shaped by the wild west fictions popular during his childhood in late nineteenth-century Germany. But he did not encounter characters from the novels of Karl May and James Fennimore Cooper in Browning. Instead, he met some of the Blackfeet individuals who continued to work with him for the next three decades. After getting to know Reiss and watching him work, some Blackfeet people gave him the name Ksisskstukiipo’ka (Beaver Child) because of the swiftness with which he completed his pastel portraits, sometimes two in a day.
Among the Blackfeet people who modelled for Reiss during his first trip to Browning, many also worked for the Great Northern Railway Company. In 1893, the company completed the construction of the rail line that connects St. Paul, Minnesota, to Seattle, Washington, passing through the Blackfeet Nation’s Reservation on its route. After Glacier National Park was created through an act of Congress in 1910, the Great Northern Railway Company expanded its enterprise to build luxury resorts in the area. Blackfeet people responded to the rapid development of the tourism industry on their traditional lands in different ways. Some Blackfeet people negotiated employment with the railway company. For example, numerous Blackfeet families were paid to set up tipi camps near its hotels during the summers. Some of the people who modeled for Reiss were hired to perform stories, songs, and dances for resort guests. Blackfeet people sold artworks to the Great Northern Railway Company and to tourists, and some people found service and labor jobs in the Park. The railway company also hired Blackfeet people to travel and make appearances at special events.
The Great Northern Railway Company used a variety of themes to market its passenger service and hotels, but its promise of experiences with Blackfeet people and culture was the most enduring and popular. The company advertised Glacier National Park as a spectacular Rocky Mountain wilderness, where visitors could encounter Blackfeet people on their traditional lands. These marketing claims sidestep the fact that Blackfeet people were denied their rights to hunt and harvest on the land after the area was designated as a National Park in 1910. Blackfeet people continue to contest these restrictions today.
When Reiss made his second trip to Blackfoot Territory in 1927, he entered into a financial agreement with the Great Northern Railway Company. The company commissioned its first portraits from Reiss that summer. At that time, he was one of many artists who sold art to the rail company. However, more than any other artist’s work, Reiss’s vibrant representations of members of the Blackfoot Confederacy became entwined with the Great Northern Railway Company. The company purchased close to one hundred portraits from Reiss during his lifetime. Its marketing department used these works in different forms of publicity, including advertisements, souvenir items like postcards and calendars, and printed matter for its facilities such as rail schedules and menus. The company also displayed Reiss’s original pastel portraits at its resorts and rail stations and circulated them in exhibitions.
Blackfeet people had different reasons for modeling for Reiss during his trips to Browning and Glacier National Park. For one thing, Reiss paid fairly. His accounting records from the 1930s, when he operated his school in Blackfoot Territory, show that he typically paid from fifty cents to a dollar per hour, depending on the model’s experience. This was a decent wage during the Depression era, roughly ten to twenty dollars today. In the 1940s models would have been paid a little more. For some people, portrait modelling was a means to express their identity and status. Working for Reiss had social and cultural benefits. The models and artists involved in Reiss’s school, for example, all camped or stayed in chalets near the art studio for weeks at a time. Some members of the Blackfoot Confederacy remembered these gatherings fondly, as they were opportunities to connect with members of their families and community. Why do you think that Blackfeet people chose to model for Reiss’s portraits?
In the later decades of the twentieth century, the Great Northern Railway Company merged with other railroads in the United States becoming Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway. Many of Reiss’s portraits of Blackfeet people are in the art collection of the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway Foundation.
For this ink illustration on ledger paper, David Dragonfly imagined the Blackfeet artists who created the local art market in the early decades of the twentieth century. He showcases some of the ways that Blackfeet artists adapted their practices to respond to the influx of tourism connected to the establishment of Glacier National Park in 1910, and the activities of the Great Northern Railway Company. In the center of the drawing, Dragonfly has rendered a train arriving at Glacier National Park. The row of figures waiting for the train are displaying a variety of artworks including moccasins, a wood carving, a war story painted on hide, miniature painted tipis and hat racks made of animal horns. One of the people looking out from the train is holding a camera. With the camera, Dragonfly references the many photographers and artists who came to the area to create representations of Blackfeet people at the time.
Buckskin Pinto Woman
Cora Bull Child Arkinson (Buckskin Pinto Woman, Kwaikisstsipimyaakii, c.1930s–1960s) is remembered by her family as kind, mild mannered, and a beautiful traditional dancer. When she modeled for this portrait, she was in her late teens. She posed for Reiss during his last trip to Browning in 1948. Cora was likely receptive to participating in portraiture because Reiss paid his models fairly, and also because of her family’s connection to Reiss. Her father George Bull Child worked as a life model and translator for Reiss. He also helped Reiss hire other Blackfeet models.
This portrait of Cora was purchased by the Great Northern Railway Company to use in promotional items, including its annual calendar in 1956. But Cora’s connection to the company began earlier in her life. As a child, her family spent their summers working for the Great Northern Railway Company. Her father and mother (Gypsy Little Leaf) set up their tipi in Glacier National Park where they met and interacted with resort guests and performed stories and songs.
Cora’s great niece Renee Bear Medicine recalled seeing a copy of this portrait at one of the hotels in Glacier National Park when she was a child. While Bear Medicine was familiar with the portraits the Great Northern Railway Company reproduced and circulated, her grandmother helped to provide the artworks’ connection to the Blackfeet people, her community, and her family. “My grandmother pointed at the portrait and said, ‘do you know that she is your aunt?’ That is how I learned that she is a Blackfeet person who I am connected to through my family.”
Cora’s portrait is shown with a set of stick figures created by her father for the Museum of the Plains Indian. George Bull Child was an artist, known for his winter counts and war story paintings. Photographs from the 1930s show him at Glacier National Park demonstrating the technique of painting on hide. The Great Northern Railway Company purchased and displayed some of his war story paintings in its hotels, and he also sold artworks to private collectors and museums.
These stick dolls are made from wild chokecherry branches. The bark is carved to resemble clothing, hands, and feet. Ernie Heavy Runner, Blackfeet advisor and historian, explained that in addition to being a toy for children, figures such as these were placed near tobacco plants so they could watch over the crop.
Donated by Dr. Claude Schaeffer, 1968
Dan Bull Plume
Blackfeet advisor and historian Ernie Heavy Runner described Dan Bull Plume, Stumiksaapoopi (c.1876–1965) as a spiritual leader who is remembered as a mentor and guide to younger generations of Blackfeet men.
Dan Bull Plume modeled for this portrait during Reiss’s final trip to Blackfoot territory in 1948. At that time, he had known Reiss for almost thirty years. He met Reiss during the artist's first trip to Browning in 1920.
Reiss’s innovative approach to portraiture is showcased in this striking image. He used pastels to naturalistically represent the skin tone and texture in Dan Bull Plume’s face and hand. He rendered the blanket using contour line and masses of red. Reiss left the background of the portrait blank, but he outlined Dan Bull Plume’s head and shoulders with thick blue lines that suggest a shadow.
Reiss limited the details of this portrait to the model’s facial features, used bold lines and blocks of color, and exploited negative space to indicate shape and form. These are all hallmarks of the style that he employed in hundreds of portraits. He used these strategies to represent his Blackfeet models, the people who posed for him in his studio in New York, and many others who he encountered during his travels throughout the United States, Mexico, and Europe.
This portrait of Dan Bull Plume is displayed alongside two paintings created by his son Daniel Bull Plume Jr., which are in the Museum of the Plains Indian’s collection. Daniel Bull Plume Jr. was a noted artist. He created murals in Browning and Glacier National Park, and his artworks are in a few private and museum collections. The painted portrait on velvet by Daniel Bull Plume Jr. is untitled. However, it is suspected to be a representation of the artist’s father.
Dan Bull Plume Jr., son of Dan Bull Plume Sr. (Stumiksisapo, also known as Green Grass Bull), was a renowned Blackfeet artist. He was commissioned to paint murals in the lodges in Glacier National Park and well as artwork for local businesses in Browning.
Purchased from Ramon Gonyea
This individual portrayed in this painting is believed to be Dan Bull Plume Sr. (Stumiksisapo; also known as Green Grass Bull), the father of Dan Bull Plume Jr. Reiss included images of Bull Plume, Sr., in a series of portraits for the Great Northern Railway Company.
Weasel Tail, Aapao’’so’yiss (c.1859-1950) was a celebrated Kainai warrior who experienced many significant battles and hunts in the nineteenth century. He was a skilled artist who recorded his war stories and hunting achievements in paintings on hide and canvas. Weasel Tail is remembered as a remarkable storyteller and teacher. His memories of life before the reservation era, as well as his knowledge of the histories and culture of the Blackfoot Confederacy, are quoted in several publications. Weasel Tail was a member of the Kainai Nation, but he spent much of his adult life living on the Blackfeet Nation’s Reservation where he had close relatives. In the 1940s, he was an advisor for the Museum of the Plains Indian. The museum’s collection includes several items that younger Blackfeet people created under his instruction in the 1940s. Reiss’s portrait is displayed in conversation with a set of tweezers and a model of a war raft, which were created under Weasel Tail’s guidance.
Weasel Tail modeled for this portrait when Reiss visited Browning in 1943, though he first met the artist in the late 1920s. In the 1930s, Weasel Tail worked as a model at Reiss’s summer art school in Blackfoot territory. Reiss created at least three pastel portraits of Weasel Tail over the years.
Kainai artist Gerald Tailfeathers, who took art classes at Reiss’s school, remembered Weasel Tail as “one of the greatest storytellers of the Blackfoot speaking Nations.” In an interview in 1973, Tailfeathers explained that the older men who worked as models, including Weasel Tail, created opportunities to share their knowledge and stories. Reiss also mentioned storytelling when he was interviewed in Browning in 1943 by the Museum of the Plains Indian’s curator John C. Ewers. He joked that without storytelling, the monotony of sitting for a portrait might put models to sleep.
John Ewers, the first Curator of the Museum of the Plains Indian, commissioned these tweezers. Several items in the museum’s collection were made by Rueben Black Boy in the 1940s under the guidance of Weasel Tail who shared his cultural knowledge with younger Blackfeet artists.
Some Blackfeet elders who saw the model shortly after completion held the opinion that Blackfeet war parties never used a war raft of this shape. Instead, that Blackfeet used travois-shaped rafts of two logs crossing at the front with crosspieces at right angles to the bow. Commissioned by John Ewers, the first Curator of the Museum of the Plains Indian.
Turtle, Spoopii (1877–c.1950s) is remembered as a great Blackfeet hunter, as well as a storyteller, ceremonialist, and artist. As a young man Turtle served with the United States Armed Forces. Later in his life, he worked for the Great Northern Railway Company performing dances and songs for visitors to Glacier National Park.
Turtle also worked as a life model for Reiss. He was the first Blackfeet person that Reiss met in Browning in 1920. Turtle and members of his family modeled for Reiss many times over the next three decades. Reiss created more portraits of Turtle than any other Blackfeet person. He also included Turtle’s likeness in mural and interior design projects. In 1933, Reiss featured Turtle in the glass mosaics in the rotunda of the Cincinnati Union Terminal, which is Reiss’s best-known large-scale mural project. Turtle also worked at Reiss’s summer art school in Blackfoot territory, and he appears in drawings and sculptures made by some of the students.
In this portrait by Reiss, Turtle is wearing a striking red beaded shirt, which is now part of the Museum of the Plains Indian’s collection. It is made from thick woven red cloth, which Blackfeet and other Native American people acquired through trade with Europeans in the nineteenth century. In the 1940s, a Blackfeet elder named Three Calf shared that this shirt belonged to a person from the Blackfoot Confederacy, and he suggested that a Blackfoot artist created the distinctive designs in the beadwork. Little else is known about its origins. What can you share about the beaded shirt worn by Turtle?
Viewing these two works together, it is possible to see how faithfully Reiss rendered the bold geometric designs in the beadwork, the texture of the ermine skins, and other elements in the attire. This pairing demonstrates tangible connections between Reiss’s portraits and the belongings and art practices of the Blackfeet people who knew him.
This war shirt is made of red flannel trade cloth with black velvet collar strips and is adorned with 23 ermine tails on the sleeves. It was worn by Turtle in the portrait Winold Reiss painted of him in the summer of 1943. Chief Many Horses (who died in battle with the Gros Ventre in 1866) is believed to be the first Blackfeet to wear a war shirt made of red trade cloth.
Day Rider, Montana Blood Boy
Little is yet known about the child represented in this pastel portrait. When Reiss created this work in 1937, he was operating his summer school in Blackfoot territory. As members of Blackfeet Nation and Kainai Nation were involved in the school, the child in the portrait might have been from either community. Reiss created at least two other portraits of the same child, one in 1937 and the other in the 1940s.
Among Reiss’s portraits, few represent small children. Life modeling involves holding a pose for an extended period, which is a difficult task for a very young child. This artwork represents a toddler with remarkable stamina, and it also exemplifies how quickly Reiss could produce his pastel portraits. He mainly focused on rendering the details of the face of his model, often suggesting the body of his subjects with only a few contour lines. When the model wore attire with complex details and patterns, Reiss would sometimes render just a section of those elements and complete them later. It was because Reiss was able to produce his pastel portraits so quickly that some Blackfeet people referred to him as Ksisskstukiipo’ka (Beaver Child).
This portrait is displayed with an eagle bone whistle and a buffalo hoof rattle from the Museum of the Plains Indian’s collection. Both works were purchased from a Blackfeet person named Mike Day Rider. We are not certain if there is any direct connection between the child named Day Rider in Reiss’s portraits and Mike Day Rider. We invite you to offer your insights. What can you share about the child represented in this portrait?
Eagle bone whistles such as this are used in the Blackfeet Sun Dance and other ceremonies.
This rattle is made from six buffalo hoofs tied together with buckskin and red flannel, with a black horse tail decoration. Buffalo hoof rattles were often used in Blackfeet ceremonial settings.
Connections Among The Art Colony
The Museum of the Plains Indian’s collection includes works by four Blackfeet artists who took classes at the Winold Reiss Art School in the 1930s. Artworks by Albert Racine (Running Weasel, Apowmuckon), Isabelle McKay (Flying Woman, Pi-Yu-Tahki), Stanley Croff, and Victor Pepion are displayed together.
Reiss operated his art school in Blackfoot territory during the summers of 1931 and 1934-37. He ran the school independently the first summer, but in the later years he partnered with the Great Northern Railway Company. Reiss was permitted to use a large building at one of the rail company’s resorts as his art school, and in return his students were expected to stay there and pay for their accommodations. The school was near the shore of St. Mary Lake and close to the east entrance of Glacier National Park. Members of the Blackfoot Confederacy had been gathering in the area for centuries, but in the 1930s it was an especially popular place for Blackfeet artists to sell artworks to tourists.
Some onlookers referred to the lively intercultural atmosphere at St. Mary Lake as an “art colony.” Artists and models from the Blackfoot Confederacy and visiting artists from across North America and Europe were involved in Reiss’s school. Throughout the summer months they stayed in the nearby chalets or campsite. The Blackfeet Arts and Crafts Cooperative Society, which was a network of art cooperatives comprising mostly Blackfeet women, opened a seasonal store close to the art school. Blackfeet artists also set up tipis at the site to attract the attention of tourists traveling on the Going-to-the-Sun Road into Glacier National Park. Reiss’s school was immersed in this larger Blackfeet art community. The Great Northern Railway Company capitalized on the vibrant art scene by making it into one of its tourist attractions. Its resort guests could travel by boat across the lake to visit the art colony.
The Winold Reiss Art School offered lessons in drawing, painting, sculpture, muralism, and design. Along with Reiss, there were two other instructors at the school. Reiss’s brother Hans taught sculpture, and German American artist Carl Link specialized in drawing and landscape painting. Reiss was a professor at New York University in the 1930s, and he arranged for enrolled university students to gain course credit at his summer school. The course content and expectations at his school in Blackfoot territory aligned with his New York University curriculum. For Blackfeet students at his summer school, Reiss waived the tuition.
Racine, McKay, Croff, and Pepion were already working artists when they trained with Reiss. Like many thousands of artists in the United States in the 1930s, they received employment funding through the Works Progress Administration, which was one of the United States Government’s New Deal stimulus programs. Jessie Donaldson Schultz, a WPA administrator, recalled Reiss praising the Blackfeet artists who took classes at his school as “the most talented students he had ever had.”
These pastel portraits by Croff and Pepion were likely created during a life drawing session at Reiss’s school. It is easy to see connections between their works and Reiss’s portraits of Blackfeet people. Croff and Pepion employed Reiss’s strategies in their naturalistic rendering of the faces and the bold contour lines that represent the bodies and clothing. While Victor Pepion’s approach to the attire is more detailed than that of Reiss, he similarly emphasized the bold geometries of the beadwork.
McKay’s geometric drawings were not created as part of Reiss’s curriculum, but she produced them around the same time that she took classes at his school. While working as a researcher for the Blackfeet Arts and Crafts Cooperative Society, she produced illustrations like these to document the designs that the cooperatives were using in the beaded items that they sold to the local tourist market and to retailers elsewhere in North America.
Racine created this wood relief carving almost forty years after he was part of the art colony. He was an accomplished painter, illustrator, and sculptor. After apprenticing with the renowned Blackfeet sculptor and carver John C. Clarke, Racine became best known for intricate wood carvings such as this one.
Isabelle McKay probably created these drawings while she was working as a researcher for the Blackfeet Arts and Crafts Cooperative Society, which was a network of art cooperatives comprising mostly Blackfeet women that formed in the 1930s. McKay produced illustrations like these to document the designs that the cooperatives were using in the beaded items that they sold to the local tourist market and to retailers elsewhere in North America.
Many members of Blackfeet cooperatives were also involved in the Winold Reiss Art School as models or art students. McKay took art classes with Reiss in c.1937. She later attended Montana State University, eventually became a journalist and independently kept up her art practice.
Albert Racine was a painter, illustrator, and sculptor. He is best known for his wood relief carvings. In the 1930s he took classes at the Winold Reiss Art School. He also apprenticed with Blackfeet sculptor and carver John C. Clarke. Later in his life he operated an art gallery in Browning.
Stanley Croff likely created this pastel portrait while he was a student at the Winold Reiss Art School. Croff later studied art and design at the Los Angeles Arts Center. He also learned fresco mural painting and apprenticed with the Swedish muralist Olle Nordmark in the late 1930s. Croff spent two years at the Chicago Art Institute, but his education was cut short due to an illness that he succumbed to in the early 1940s. Croff’s obituary mentions that Winold Reiss encouraged him to continue to study art.
The model in this portrait by Croff might be a Blackfeet woman named New Robe.
When these paintings were created, Isabelle McKay and Victor Pepion were likely working as researchers for the Blackfeet Arts and Crafts Cooperative Society, which was a network of art cooperatives comprising mostly Blackfeet women that formed in the 1930s. The cooperatives produced artworks to sell to the local tourist market and to retailers elsewhere in North America. While working with the cooperatives, McKay and Pepion received employment funding through the Works Progress Administration, which was one of the United States Government’s New Deal stimulus programs.
In the mid-1930s, The Blackfeet Arts and Crafts Cooperative Society operated a store in Browning and another seasonal shop at St. Mary Lake near the entrance to Glacier National Park. The seasonal store was close to the building that Winold Reiss used for his summer art school. Many people involved in Blackfeet cooperatives were also involved in Reiss’s school as models or art students. Both McKay and Pepion took classes at the school.
When the Museum of the Plains Indian opened in 1941, members of The Blackfeet Arts and Crafts Cooperative Society managed the gift shop.
Victor Pepion (1908-1956)
Among the Blackfeet artists who took classes at the Winold Reiss Art School in the 1930s, Victor Pepion became the most eclectic and prolific. The artworks gathered here show the scope of his interdisciplinary practice.
Pepion’s works are in several private and public collections, but the Museum of the Plains Indian has the largest number of his artworks dating from the 1930s to the 1950s. The museum benefitted from Pepion’s practice in other ways as well. When it opened in 1941, Pepion was commissioned to create The Buffalo Hunt mural series and the painted hide that are in the museum’s lobby. He also designed some of the museum’s original displays and contributed to the dioramas.
Pepion created the concept for The Buffalo Hunt mural series under the guidance of his great uncle Mountain Chief, who was part of the generation of Blackfeet people who had experienced buffalo hunts. Pepion was a skilled muralist when he proposed the series. He apprenticed with the Swedish muralist Olle Nordmark who supervised the installation of fresco murals for many public buildings in the 1930s.
Like Reiss, Pepion was a versatile artist, designer, and teacher. In the years after he attended Reiss’s summer school, he seized opportunities at several colleges and universities to study many disciplines in the arts, including figural and abstract painting, mural painting, sculpture, design, ceramics, jewellery, leatherwork, engraving, and lithography. He also studied history, literature, and biology. He attained a Bachelor and Master of Arts degrees, and later became a post-secondary art instructor.
David Dragonfly, who was the curator of the Museum of the Plains Indian from 1994 to 2019, has described Pepion’s art practice as “a kind of Blackfoot modernism.” Pepion developed a distinctive style that combines the strategies of culturally continuous Blackfoot art with many other aesthetic forms and genres.
In 1943, Reiss travelled to Browning to paint portraits of Blackfeet people, including some that are included in this exhibition. During the trip, he visited the Museum of the Plains Indian. Reiss did not encounter Pepion who was serving in WWII at the time, but he was able to view his art. According to the museum’s curator John C. Ewers, Reiss was delighted by the work of his former student.
Victor Pepion created this pastel and tempera portrait while he was a student at the Winold Reiss Art School. The title of the artwork is Night Rider, but the model has also been identified as Swims Under.
Victor Pepion designed this poster to advertise the Museum of the Plains Indian, which opened its doors in 1941. The poster showcases Pepion’s skills as a portraitist and graphic designer.
This is one of Victor Pepion’s preliminary sketches for his mural series The Buffalo Hunt in the lobby of the Museum of the Plains Indian. The museum opened its doors in 1941. During that summer, museum visitors could watch Pepion at work painting the dry fresco murals. Pepion created the concept for the mural series under the guidance of his great uncle Mountain Chief.
Medicine Man’s Dream is part of a series of tempera paintings that Victor Pepion created in the early 1950s. After his death in 1956, one of the paintings in his series was awarded first honorable mention in the Philbrook Museum’s juried exhibition. Except for The Buffalo Hunt murals in the lobby of the Museum of the Plains Indian, Pepion’s series of tempera paintings from the 1950s are his most widely viewed works.
John Pepion describes himself as a contemporary Blackfoot graphic artist. He is the great nephew of Blackfeet artist Victor Pepion. John Pepion cites his great uncle’s style of art as an important influence on his own practice.
Howard Pepion is a Blackfeet artist and the nephew of the renowned Blackfeet artist, Victor Pepion. Howard produces variations of art including acrylic paintings, and oil paintings both on canvas and other mediums such as buffalo skulls.
Howard also re-created Victor Pepion’s Blackfeet tipi sketches, which are part of the Museum of the Plains Indian collection.
When asked about Sstaa’niiniki, Kills Instead (Cecile Last Star, Cecile Black Boy, 1893–1966), her great granddaughter Mary Ellen Little Mustache remembered her as kind, loving and hardworking. She also described Sstaa’niiniki as a “Blackfeet ambassador” with great knowledge of Blackfoot histories, language, culture, and ceremony. Sstaa’niiniki’s teachers were Blackfeet people of her parents’ and grandparents’ generations who remembered life before the reservation era. She endeavored to carry their knowledge forward to share with future generations. With the guidance of Blackfeet knowledge keepers, she created numerous objects and artworks, which are now part of the collection of the Museum of the Plains Indian.
About a year before she modelled for this portrait by Reiss, Sstaa’niiniki completed one of her best-known projects. From 1938 to 1942, she collaborated with Blackfeet artist Victor Pepion to create a remarkable record of Blackfoot tipis. The pair conferred with many members of The Blackfoot Confederacy to learn about and document their tipis. Sstaa’niiniki transcribed the origin stories of each tipi, and both she and Pepion created illustrations of the artworks on the tipi covers. These drawings and stories are now in the Museum of the Plains Indian’s collection. The project exemplifies the continuity of Blackfoot culture, as many of these tipis are still used today.
Some of Sstaa’niiniki drawings of tipi art are shown alongside Reiss’s pastel portrait of her. In this arrangement we glimpse the range of Sstaa’niiniki’s art production. In addition to her drawings, she is remembered for her sewing and beadwork. When she modelled for Reiss, she wore a dress that she reserved for important occasions. Her sewing talents are showcased in Reiss’s rendering of the brilliant white buckskin dress, adorned with elk teeth. Reiss also created points of interest with the red and blue beadwork on the yoke and shoulders of Sstaa’niiniki’s dress, and in the design of the beaded purse resting on her lap.
Sstaa’niiniki started working for Reiss as a life model in the 1930s when he operated his summer art school in Blackfoot territory. She appears in at least three of his portraits. Sstaa’niiniki’s granddaughter shared that “these portraits are sacred now, because Reiss touched the lives of our ancestors.”
This dog travois is among several items made by Cecile Last Star and Rueben Black Boy through a project commissioned by the Museum of the Plains in 1942-1943. Travois were used to transport tipis and household items as Blackfeet people moved camp.
These illustrations of tipi cover art were selected from a much larger project that Sstaa’niiniki (Cecile Last Star) and Victor Pepion collaborated on between 1938 and 1942. The two met with many members of the Blackfoot Confederacy to learn about and document their tipis. Sstaa’niiniki transcribed the origin stories of each tipi, and both she and Pepion created illustrations of the artworks on the tipi covers. The project was funded by The Federal Writer’s Project, which was one of the many New Deal employment and stimulus programs implemented by the United States Government in the 1930s. The objective of the Federal Writers’ Project was to employ people to generate primarily written content pertaining to the culture and histories of the United States. Sstaa’niiniki and Pepion were among the Blackfeet people employed to create written and visual content for the Project.