Archive for Moqui
A 1894 Sculpture of Charles F. Browne ~ ~ ~ by Hermon A. MacNeil.
Posted by: | CommentsOut of public view, deep in the archives of the Chicago Art Institute rests a 127 year old bust of Charles F. Browne, American artist.
Cast in Bronze with a dark brown patina, the piece is signed on pedestal; “MacNeil ’94” / “American Art Bronze Foundry. J. Berchem. / Chicago”
Charles Francis Browne, MacNeil Colleague and American Artist.
The subject was Hermon MacNeil’s colleague, frontier traveling companion, and studio mate in their Marquette Building studio. The piece came out of their years in Chicago after the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition.
The archival piece enters its third century of history “OFF VIEW” at the archives of the Art Institute of Chicago. Here we offered it exclusively to You, —“Friends of Hermon Atkins MacNeil” — & followers of ‘HermonAtkinsMacNeil.com’. ENJOY !!
1895. With Hamlin Garland as their guide, the pair rode by train and horse back to the south west territories of the Navajo, Hopi, (Moqui). MacNeil recalled years later, “We found Indians a plenty and perhaps because I was keenly interested in them I was in heaven and I flared to a high pitch, working from sunrise to dark. …”
“Browne painted murals for the Children’s Building at the World’s Columbian Exposition and became an instructor at the Art Institute of Chicago’s rapidly growing school.” 2
Hamilin Garland and Browne were “double” brothers-in-law having married sisters of Lorado Taft, the chief sculptor of the Exposition. Taft was the brother of both of their wives. They all along with MacNeil were part of the Eagles Nest, a summer artist colony in Oregon, Illinois. Browne was a founder of the summer group.
Portrait of Charles F. Browne by H. A. MacNeil 1894. Art Institute of Chicago. [Signed on pedestal; “MacNeil ’94” / “American Art Bronze Foundry. J. Berchem. / Chicago”] 1
The dating of the bust of C. F. Browne precedes their venture to the Southwest Territory but documents the shared years of their early careers in the 19th century.
Writing in 1943, MacNeil recalls these years in Chicago:
“I took a small studio in Chicago and tried to see if I could make a go of it. C. F. Browne, painter, was also stranded there and I invited him to share a studio with me. During that year (evenings) I was asked to teach sculpture and drawing in the school of the Art Institute and also had the good fortune to have four bas-reliefs to do illustrating the life of Pere Marquette.” [ MacNeil, Autobiography
MacNeil’s four bas-reliefs of the life of Pere Marquette still make frame the four-door entrance of the building
The Marquette Building panels after cleaning efforts several years ago sparkle with history and beauty at the 140 South Dearborn Street entrance.
Chicago Architecture celebrated the building renovation and mentioned the 126 year old sculpture panels”
“At the main entrance are four bronze relief sculptures by Hermon A. MacNeil illustrating Father Marquette and Louis Joliet’s travels. They depict the pair launching their canoes, meeting Native Americans, arriving at the Chicago River, and interring Marquette’s body. On the revolving doors are kick plates with tomahawks and push plates with panther heads designed by Edward Kemeys (of the Art Institute lions fame). The vestibule features French and Catholic motifs like fleurs-de-lis and the cross.”
~ ~ ~ ~ Chicago Art Institute Notations for this work ~ ~ ~ ~
Portrait of Charles F. Browne by H. A. MacNeil 1894.
Portrait of Charles Francis Browne. Date: 1894
Artist: Hermon Atkins MacNeil. American, 1866–1947
ABOUT THIS ARTWORK: Currently Off View
SOURCES:
- Art Institute of Chicago. Portrait of Charles Frances Brown by Hermon MacNeil. https://www.artic.edu/artworks/102974/portrait-of-charles-francis-browne
- See Also: M Christine Schwartz Collection. https://schwartzcollection.com/artist/charles-francis-browne/
Related Images:
MacNeil Christmas Cards
Posted by: | CommentsHermon MacNeil often made Christmas Cards that featured his own drawings and studio images.
MacNeil Christmas card from 1922.
Here’s a Card from 1922 ==>>
This pencil sketch proclaiming “Merry Christmas 1922” appears reminiscent of MacNeil’s 
“Sun Vow” 
In that composition, a Native Chief, possibly Sioux, coaches a young warrior through a rite of passage — shooting an arrow into the of the sun.
In MacNeil’s 1922 Christmas drawing, a similar pair of figures wave a banner of seasons greetings. Their presence seems a reprise of the Sun Vow sculpture.
While that was over a century ago, here’s what we can know today:
- We know being an artist, MacNeil often carried and kept sketchbooks.
- We know he would sit in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair with his sketchbook.
- We know he sketched D. L Moody at an interdenominational Sunday Worship in Wild Bill’s Arena (since no Sunday shows were allowed and Moody rented the venue).
- We know he traveled, sketched and sculpted on his trip to the Southwest territories in 1895 (New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and Colorado).
- We know he formed clay and plaster images there; and he shipped many back to Chicago.
- We know that his memory of Native images dominated his sculptures for the next ten years.
I suspect that the idea for this card sprang up from the artist’s visual memory, perhaps, revived from an old sketchbook. A dusty record of images that he first saw three decades earlier at the Worlds Columbian Exposition of 1893.
Here’s More from this website:
“Native American Themes: His first introduction to native subjects came through Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. During the 1893 Worlds Fair, Buffalo Bill’s troupe performed in a carnival setting outside the main entrance. Fascinated, MacNeil’s artist-eye and imagination took every opportunity to see the show and sketch the ceremonies and rituals of Indian life — MacNeil often carried a sketch book. He latter befriended Black Pipe, a Sioux warrior from the show, who he found down-and-out on the Chicago streets after the carnival midways of the Fair had closed. MacNeil invited Black Pipe to model for him and assist in studio labors, which he did for over a year. Inspired by these native subjects and encouraged by Edward Everett Ayers, MacNeil found a respect for this vanishing Native culture and made subsequent trips to the southwest. When the Marquette Building was constructed, MacNeil was awarded a commission to complete Four Bas Relief Panels of over the main entrance. His work depicts four scenes from Marquette’s trip through the Great Lakes region.”
“In the summer of 1895, along with Hamlin Garland (a writer) and C. F. Browne (a painter), he traveled to the four-corners territories (now, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and Utah) seeing American Indians (Navajo, and Moqui — now Hopi) in their changing cultural element on various reservations. While there, he was asked to sculpt, out of available materials, a likeness of Chief Manuelito. The Navajo warrior had died in despair after being imprisoned for four years as a renegade by the U. S. Government (Col. Kit Carson) twenty-five years earlier. Manuelito’s likeness (click here), made of available materials, brought tears to his widow’s eyes, and remains an object of cultural pride in Gallup, New Mexico to this day.” SOURCE: Click HERE
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Society of Medalist #3 ~ Hopi ~ Prayer for Rain ~ by Hermon A. MacNeil
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Rarest of the Rare! A very rare Silver – Society of Medalists #3 – by ‘H. A. MacNeil’ (in lower right).
It is “Silver.”
Only twenty-five were minted in 1931.
In the summer of 1895, Hermon MacNeil traveled to the Southwest. With Hamlin Garland and Charles Francis Browne, they journey by railroad to the four-corners region of New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and Utah.
With Garland as guide the sculptor and the artist witnessed Native American culture first hand. They visited the Hopi and Navajo reservations immersed in Native American life. They saw the “Prayer for Rain” ~ the Snake Dance ceremony depicted here on the SOM #3.
The “Prayer for Rain” depicts the Moqui (Hopi) runner carrying the snakes to the river to activate the rain cycle of nature. [SOM #3 Reverse]
ONLY 25 were made in SILVER (99.9%).
The Silver issue of MacNeil’s medallion is among the rarest of the rare.
Over sixty-times that number were struck in Bronze (1,713). Now nearly eight decades later, those are more common, but also rare and collectible. [See pictured below — at the end of this article — this author’s collection of the varied Bronze patinas of S.O.M #3.]
The next year (1932), Frederick MacMonnies sculpted a medallion celebrating Charles A. Lindbergh historic flight. 250 of those medallions were struck in Silver. That makes the Lindbergh issue ten times more common than MacNeil’s “Hopi”. (10 X 25) —
Silver minting of most SOM Issues quantities usually ranged from 50 to 125. Most often 100 silver specimens were struck. SO the 25 of the MACNEIL’S “Prayer for Rain” creations are twice as rare and up to 10 times as rare as other SOM Issues.
This, all Society of Medalists (SOM) in Silver can be considered rare. However, this MacNeil piece is definitely “THE RAREST OF THE RARE!”
This images that MacNeil’s placed of the Obverse and Reverse had been burned in his visual memory in 1895. They lived in his artist’s awareness for decades. It is no stretch to say that they inspired numerous sculptures and pieces that came out of his studio.
“The Moqui Runner,” “The Primitive Chant,” were “living” in his mind when he first saw these scenes. Then, three decades later, he chose them for his own theme and design. Thus, the 1931 Society of Medalists Issue #3 became his offering to this young series by American Sculptors.
The following are just a few of the sculptures and monuments, which re-capture some of the Native American culture and history first observed in this 1895 trip to the Hopi (Moqui) people.
- 1894 “Primitive Indian Music” ~ family heirloom
- 1895 “Chief Manuelito” statue ~Gallup, New Mexico
- 1897 “The Moqui Runner” Modeled 1896, Cast 1897
- 1901 “Primitive Chant to the Great Spirit” ~ Smithsonian American Art Museum – Washington, DC
- 1901 “Sun Vow” Art Institute of Chicago
- 1901 “Sun Vow” Metropolitan Museum ~NYC
- 1903 “Chief of the Multnomah Tribe”, Met Museum, NYC
- 1904 “The Coming of the White Man #2” ~ Queens, NYC ~ Poppenhusen
- 1904 “The Coming of the White Man” ~ Portland
By comparison, the SOM’s issued from:
- 1930 to 1944. ~ struck 2X to 5X this quantity of SILVER medallions.
- 1945 to 1950. ~ those SOM silver issues were minted in quantities of 50 to 60.
- 1950 to 1972. ~ NO silver medallions were struck.
- 1973 to 1979. ~ Silver medallions ranged from 140-200.
- No Silver coins were struck from 1980-1995
- In 1995 the “Society of Medalists Series” closed production.
In 1931 design the the Society of Medalist medal #3, Hermon MacNeil chose to immortalize his memory of these images from 1895 in rare silver — 99.9% fine silver!
A Rare Beauty Indeed. Hi Ho, Silver !
MacNeil Display MacNeil Medallion (front and reverse) in Center. Framed by 10 SOM #3 (Obverse & reverse) of varied patinas. SOURCE: Collection of Webmaster
SOURCES:
Information taken from the six page list entitled: Medal Collectors of America; Checklist of “The Society of Medalists” Issues 1930 – Date. Originally written by D. Wayne Johnson with rights retained by him; used with permission.
His listing includes the original pricing supplied by Paul Bosco in the inaugural issue of the MCA’s publication “The Medal Cabinet” (Summer 2000) for the silver issues and Paul’s update values for the bronze pieces that appeared in the Spring/Summer 2002 edition of “The MCA Advisory.”
Related Images:
2014
Several sculptures of Hermon Atkins MacNeil are featured in a current exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City continuing through April 13, 2014. The show entitled “The American West in Bronze, 1850-1925” contains three parts: Indians, wild animals, and cowboys.
A MacNeil “Sun Vow” sculpture housed in the Founder’s gallery of the Reading Public Museum in Reading, PA
Another “Chief of the Mulnomah” was identified at Mount Vernon, Ohio in an August 2013 inquiry from Linnette Porter-Metler of the Mt. Vernon and Knox County Library Staff. The date ’03’ follows MacNeil’s signature.
Three MacNeil works of early Native American images are visible online in an 8 photo slide show of the exhibit. They are apparently part of the “Indians” segment of the show. CLICK HERE for the link to this slide show. The MacNeil works include The Chief of the Multnomah (slide #3 in left background); The Moqui Runner (slide #6 foreground); The Sun Vow (slide #6 right rear).
The exhibit has received some criticism in a NY Times art review entitled “Manifest Destiny at the Point of a Gun” by Ken Johnson. The MacNeil pieces are specifically not mentioned in Johnson’s critique.
(More on Ken Johnson’s comments in the another article.)
MacNeil’s “Moqui Runner” at the Reading Room of the Newberry Library in Chicago. This piece is a gift of Edward Everett Ayer who encouraged and marketed 12 castings of this piece for MacNeil during his early years in Rome 1896-99. (photo by Dan Leininger, webmaster – bkgd removed)
“The American West in Bronze, 1850-1925” continues through April 13 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; 212-535-7710, metmuseum.org.
Related Images:
HOPI – “Prayer for Rain” by Hermon A. MacNeil
Posted by: | CommentsHermon Atkins MacNeil (1866-1947) – “Hopi” (Obverse) and “Prayer for Rain” (Reverse) Society of Medallists (SOM), Issue #3 of 1931, was based on MacNeil’s “Moqui (Hopi) Runner” statue of 1897. This was the only SOM issue that MacNeil would ever sculpt. Yet nearly fifty years later (1943), he vividly described these images of his 1895 travels to the Hopi (Moqui) Mesa in his Autobiographical Sketches.
MacNeil’s brief artists intro accompanying the medal is as follows:
Four examples of various finish patinas on medals that MacNeil selected for SOM#3 in 1931 (Reverse view. From collection of Dan Leininger, webmaster)
“The two incidents of the Hopi Prayer for Rain on the mesas of northeastern Arizona depicted on this medal are chosen by your sculptor because of the extraordinary vital enthusiasm and power that the Indians throw into this ceremony. Having witnessed it and been thrilled by the intensity of their emotion and on further study by the complicated and perfectly natural development of this drama, I cannot help feel that in it we find a basic note underlying all religions. All these Southwest Indians, living as they do in an arid region, have developed their religion along the lines of their greatest need –water.”
In the documentation accompanying each medal, MacNeil offered the following additional narrative of his witnessing of this ritual nearly 36 years earlier while on his 1895 venture to the Southwest with Hamlin Garland and Charles F. Browne:
“This is one of their greatest and most important ceremonies. Occurring in August, it is filled with ritualism for nine days and in their kiva, an underground chamber, they have ceremonies with these snakes that have been gathered by the antelope and snake clans of their tribe for six days, from the north, east, south and west, also from above and below, therefore from all the directions of the universe. These snakes, so far as our best authority goes, although a portion of them are poisonous varieties, are not tampered with but are handled freely by the Indians, both during their underground ceremonies, and later on the last day above ground, in their public ceremony. During the last day ceremony they dance two and two, one with the snakes in his mouth, sometimes two at a time, while the other, accompanying him, wards off the head of the snake from the face of his companion with an eagle feather. It will be remembered that the eagle preys on the snake in nature and the smell of the eagle feather is supposed to frighten the snake with the intention of preventing him from biting. This ceremony was so intense and apparently so vital to them that although I myself saw two Indians bitten, they seem to be so completely under the control of the spirit that although I watched for further developments, yet there seemed to be no swelling or poisonous effects from the bites.
Even though the dancing takes place after the participants have taken hardly any food during the nine days, yet immediately after the public ceremony, which is performed in a circular action around the sacred stone on the mesa at Waslpi, they each take an emetic. After circling twice around the sacred rock, the one bearing snakes in his mouth emits them and a third follower immediately grabs the snake from the ground and carries it back to a little improvised enclosure of cottonwood boughs. After all the snakes have been used on this manner each Indian grabs into the bunch and with his hands filled with the snakes, each one starts running down the trail off the mesa onto the plains as shown on the reverse side of the medal and figuratively deposits the snakes again in their underground abodes.
Obverse of SOM#3 by Hermon MacNeil (collection of Dan Leininger, webmaster)
Behind the heads of the dancers on the obverse is shown the sand picture drawn by the Indians themselves with colored earths on the floor of their kiva or underground chamber, about which they performed sacred ceremonials previous to the public dance. On this side of the medal the attempt is also made to show the apparent basic reason for the use of the snake in this prayer for water. This reason or theory seems to have evolved from the similarity in action between the snake on the earth and the lightning in the sky. The Indian, however, has evolved the theory of a kind of cousinship through these angular moving reptiles with the still more angular movement of the lightning to jar the rain clouds for rain, thus making their chief need their strongest prayer. Curiously enough, although there had been no sign of rain for weeks, the day following the remarkable ceremony, a little cloud appeared in the sky and the next day it rained copiously.”
[ SOURCE: Society of Medalists documentation accompanying the medals; reproduced at “Medals4Trade” ]
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1931 “Moqui Rain Dance” (Obverse) SOM #3 ~ Dan Leininger, webmaster
Related Images:
Chief Manuelito – and “Native American Day” in South Dakota
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"Moqui Runner", "Prayer for Rain"
"A Primitive Chant"
A MacNeil "Sun Vow"
"A Chief of the Multnomah"
Chief Manuelito of the Navajo sculpted by Hermon A. MacNeil in 1895 two years after the Chief's death at age 75.
This topic seems a strange fit for a website devoted to the art of Hermon Atkins MacNeil, an American Sculptor of the 19th and 20th centuries, born in Massachuesetts of Scottish descendents.
Please, bear with me briefly while I take you on a journey toward today’s Native American Day story.
STEP ONE: An arrogant sense of Manifest Destiny often accompanied many 19th and 20th Century concepts of American culture, history, and pride. An inescapable irony in our own 21st Century, is that Hermon MacNeil and many of his contemporary sculptors placed many Native American images at the center stage of the historical and allegorical sculptures of World Fairs from 1890 to 1915. That is quite visible throughout this website. I am beginning to find that MacNeil’s embrace of Native American themes in his sculpting, especially from 1895-1905, still offers us lessons more than a century later in understanding culture, anthropology and life values.
STEP TWO: Today is Native American Day in South Dakota, my home for the last 31 years. I understand that California is the only other state celebrating a Native American Day. “In 1989 the South Dakota legislature unanimously passed legislation proposed by Governor George S. Mickelson to proclaim 1990 as the “Year of Reconciliation” between Native Americans and whites, to change Columbus Day to Native American Day and to make Martin Luther King’s birthday into a state holiday. Since 1990 the second Monday in October has been celebrated as Native American Day in South Dakota.” [ Wikipedia: Native American Day: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_Day ] In April 1993, Governor George Mickelson, a friendly giant of a man, and eight civic leaders were killed in a tragic plane crash in Iowa. His death was a great loss to this state and to hopes of Reconciliation. We still observe the day, even if it is in a subdued fashion.
STEP THREE: I am Daniel Neil Leininger, founding webmaster of HermonAtkinsMacNeil.com. I am a Caucasian descendant of Scottish German stock. My maternal grandfather. Thomas Henry McNeil (1860-1932), was a cousin to Hermon Atkins MacNeil (1866-1947). My mother, Ollie McNeil Leininger, always called Hermon MacNeil her “Uncle Hermon.” My middle name, Neil, was my mother’s gift. It reminds me of my heritage.
STEP FOUR: In researching the sculpture of MacNeil in recent years, I have developed a growing sense of “historical irony” in his placement of Native American images to symbolize the vitality of American expansion westward through his cultural era of Manifest Destiny. His choice moves against the strong current of self-absorption in contemporary cultures, both his and ours.
MacNeil's sculpture design for the Award Medals at the Pan American Exhibitition, Buffalo, NY 1901 (reverse). Note the shields with South and North American continents
EXAMPLES 1-5: See photos above:
EXAMPLE 6: MacNeil made a Pan American Exhibition Award Medallion with an indigenous North American and an indigenous South American sharing a Peace Pipe. Probably a corrupted mix of Native images, but it is a allegory, a visually symbolic representation carrying a larger meaning.
THE STORY OF MacNEIL and CHIEF MANUELITO:
MacNeil never met Chief Manuelito. Two years after his death, MacNeil made a statue of him using only a photograph supplied by trader C. N. Cotton. The year was 1895. Thirty years earlier, Manuelito had survived the “scorched-earth” missions of the U.S. Army under Gen. James H. Carleton and Col. Kit Carson, the “Long Walk” (a 320 mile forced march of men women and children through the deserts) to Bosque Rodondo, and the imprisonment of Native peoples there for four years.
Navajo Chief Manuelito - taken between 1868 and his death in 1893. He was a war Chief of the 1860. (photo Credit: ASU- Denver Public Library).
MacNeil made the statue tribute out of available materials. He built a wooden frame, a wire mesh surface and sculpted cement around it forming an eight foot two inch tall image of the Chief wrapped in a bright native blanket. His techniques seem to mirror the many ‘staff plaster’ statues he made for the 1893 Chicago Worlds Fair. He was visiting the southwest that summer with friends Hamlin Garland (writer) and C.F. Browne (artist) to experience the vanishing Native culture at the urging od E. E. Ayers and others.
As the story goes, after he finished he asked Cotton if the piece was acceptable. Cotton left and brought in a group of older Native women to enter the canvas enclosure where MacNeil had setup a open-air studio workshop. After much weeping, the women, one of whom was Manuelito’s wife, came out obviously moved by the experience of being with the piece.
See my previous stories on Manuelito and MacNeil, and MacNeil’s two friends, Hamlin Garland and C.F. Browne.
Edward E. Ayers was the benefactor of the three artists who urged them to make the trip. A former member of the First California Cavalry Volunteers of the U.S. Army in AZ during the Civil War and the Native American oppressions of the 1860s,Ayers was stationed at the Cerro Colorado Silver Mine (now a ghost town) south of Tuscon in Pima County AZ. He was in charge of 14 men who guarded the silver mine from robbers. While there he happened on a copy of William H. Prescott’s Conquest of Mexico placed there by the mine’s owner Col. Samuel Colt, of revolver-fame. Ayers devoured the book repeatedly and began his life-long insatiable interest in Native American literature, manuscripts, and culture. He became an American business magnate, who is “best remembered for the endowments of his substantial collections of books and original manuscripts from Native American and colonial-era history and ethnology, which were donated to the Newberry Library and Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago.” [ Wikipedia ] (Editors Note: Ayers passion for understanding and preserving Native American culture continues into the 21st Century through the legacy of his estate now bequeathed to Newberry Library, Field Museum and related archieves.)
One hundred years after MacNeil make the trip and completed the piece, Joe Di Gregorio, (Gallup businessman and grocer), stepped in to rescue the Manuelito statue. It was badly needing repair and being stored in a warehouse going up for sale. Leslie Linchicum of the Albuquerque Journal relays this account in her March 2010 story:
“Longtime Gallup grocer Joe Di Gregorio and his wife, Christine, own the statue. They took custody after the building’s owner, in negotiations to sell to an out-of state buyer in 1983, turned to Di Gregorio and whispered, “Don’t let the bastards take the Indian.” Di Gregorio didn’t. He agreed to take custody of Manuelito and promised to keep him in Gallup.” [“Navajo Leader Stands Tall” Albuquerque Journal, March 11, 2010]
Now 116 years after MacNeil’s visit, McKinley County Fine Arts Commission in Gallup, NM is restoring the nearly 9 foot fragile artwork that MacNeil built in an outdoor tent. “Carolyn Milligan, chairwoman of the … Commission, has estimated that it will cost $25,000 to $38,000 to restore the sculpture, which has deteriorated from a hundred years of rail yard soot, showers with a fire hose and a well-meaning but inept repainting.”
Milligan continues, “The 1,000-pound piece is fragile, …. Wherever it stands, she said, it will probably attract crowds.” “It’s really quite a commanding piece,” Milligan said. “And it’s for the people.”
BEST WORDS OF THE DAY: “Don’t let the bastards take the Indian.” MacNeil and Manuelito would probably smile to hear those words. While virtually all of the ‘staff plaster’ sculptures of the World Fairs have crumbled to dust, Manuelito still stands tall.
After all, he does belong to the people, centuries of people, both Native and otherwise.
THAT’s WHY I BELIEVE THAT: MacNeil’s embrace of Native American themes in his sculpting from 1895-1905 still offers us lessons in culture, anthropology and life values for the 21st Century.
MORE HISTORY:
1.) For further irony read my previous stories of the making of Hermon MacNeil’s 1895 sculpture representing Chief Manuelito of the Navajo or read history of this Chief of the Navajo starting here.
2.) William Wroth’s “Long Walk” to Bosque Redondo also provides poignant insight into this period of the United States management of Native American peoples and the life of Chief Manuelito who was part of that “Long Walk” and signed the treaty of 1868 that sought to restore Navajo lands after the disastrous interventions of the US government.
3.) “The Long Walk” A Ten (10) Part video story of the Navajo “Fearing Time” accounting atrocities against the Navajo people from 1863 to 1868. Researched and produced with support of the George S. and Delores Dore’ Eccles Foundation and the Pacific Mountain Network. Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5; Part 6; Part 7; Part 8; Part 9; Part 10.
4.) “The Long Walk” For a Navajo perspective view this video by Nanebah, whose great-great grandmother survived “The Long Walk”.
5.) “300 Miles – Or Long Walk Of The Navajo – Richard Stepp” For a musical tribute with an ‘American Indian Movement’ perspective.
6.) Leslie Linthicum, staff writer for the Albuquerque Journal, gives a delightful article, “Navajo Leader Stands Tall”. It offers historical irony from our 21st Century on attitudes toward Native American culture through her story of the ‘management’ and ‘preservation’ of MacNeil’s iconic statue of Chief Manuelito.
Related posts:
- 1901 Pan-American Exposition – Buffalo, New York ~~ “The Rainbow City” (10.3)
- MacNeil Sculpture “Meets Me in St. Louis” (20)
- Expositions and World’s Fairs ~ Hermon A. MacNeil (15.6)
- MacNeil at the 1893 Columbian Exposition ~ ~ ~ THE CHICAGO YEARS ~ ~ (10.8)
- https://hermonatkinsmacneil.com/2011/03/26/1904-louisiana-purchase-exposition-saint-louis-worlds-fair/
Related Images:
MacNeil Sculpture at the Newberry Library
Posted by: | CommentsMacNeil’s “Moqui Runner” is running through a prominent Chicago Library — The Newberry. The “Runner’s” race began in 1924 and continues into the 21st century. What a Moqui-MacNeil Marathon!
Macneil’s “Moqui Runner” has silently raced through the Newberry Library since 1924
According to Scott Manning Stevens, Ph.D. (director of the McNickle Center at the Newberry), it is very likely that this Moqui belonged to Edward Everett Ayer himself. Its dimensions are the same as those specified in this AIC collection entry [AIC – “Moqui Runner” Entitled there as “Snake Dance”]
Edward Ayer also encouraged the young McNeil to travel to the American west and southwest. He urged artists and sculptors to capture the vanishing images of the native culture. In addition he was a patron of many artisans in such travels and western studies.
A portrait of Ayer’s office painted by his nephew, Elbridge Ayer Burbank, includes two MacNeil statuettes (light gray pieces) sitting on the bookcases. The one on the left resembles “Early Toil” (a figure of a native American woman carrying many objects of her daily labor). The other figure on the right appears to be “A Chief of the Multnomah” (an arrow straight chief standing proudly with his arms crossed over his chest). This second piece became the right half of the “Coming of the White Man” grouping that can be seen in Portland’s Washington Park and in Poppenhusen Institute in College Point, Queens, NYC (and in the previous post of June 1, 2011 on this website-see link at bottom).
The fact that Ayer private study would include these two MacNeil sculptures offers perpetual record to his connection to the artist and patronage of his western work. The fact that Ayer’s nephew included them in his painting composition bears testimony to his awareness of his uncle’s identity with MacNeil pieces.
MacNeil’s swift Runner, balanced on one foot, remains frozen in time from the 19th, to 20th, to 21st Centuries. (Webmaster’s photo: Daniel Neil Leininger – background removed – enhanced 3/2023)
MacNeil had Blackpipe model in his Chicago studio that he shared with C. F Browne after the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. Blackpipe continued to work for him through 1894. This all gives evidence of his fascination with Native people and making them subjects of his sculpture. His travels in 1895 to the southwest (later called the four corners area) greatly influenced his sculpture choices for years to come. These works became the objects of his early public acclaim. Yet their influence remained throughout his career both personally and publicly. In 1931, for example, the Society of Medalists commissioned him to make their annual medal. The “Prayer for Rain” (the obverse – patterned after the “Moqui” shown here) and the “Hopi” (reverse) became his chosen subject. [“Hopi” was the later preferred spelling of the earlier “Moqui.”]
MacNeil’s Exhibit listings for the 1901 Pan-American Exposition are recorded in “The Catalogue of the Exhibition of Fine Arts.” Pan-American Exposition: Buffalo, 1901. p. 45-46; 59 This document indicates that the statue belonging to E. E. Ayer, Esq by 1901 was the one exhibited in the Pan-American exposition and receiving the Silver Medal in the Paris Fair of 1900. It appears that the Ayer Moqui pictured here is that same sculpture.
Records in the Catalogue of Pan-American Exposition of 1901 in Buffalo, NY are as follows:
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H. A. MacNeil: -
#1613. The Sun Vow – Silver Medal, Paris Exposition, 1900. -
#1614. The Moqui Runner – Silver Medal, Paris Exposition, 1900 (Lent by E. E. Ayer, Esq) -
#1615. Bust — Agnese -
#1616. Bust – [Lent by C. F. Browne, Esq.] -
p. 59. -
MacNeil, H. A., 145 West 55th Street, New York, N. Y. (II*) 1613-1616 -
*II – indicates MacNeil exhibited in “Group II – Sculpture, including medals and cameos” p. 49.
The Art Institute of Chicago lists the following collection information:
- Hermon Atkins MacNeil
- American, 1866-1947
- The Moqui Runner (The Moqui Prayer for Rain—The Returning of the Snakes), Modeled 1896, cast c. 1897
- Bronze
- H. 57.2 cm (22 1/2 in.)
- Signed on side of base: “H. A. MAC NEIL. Sc. Fond. Nelli. ROMA”
- Inscribed around side of base, front: “THE RETURNING OF THE SNAKES”
- Inscribed under center of the figure, on base: “THE MOQUI / PRAYER.FOR.RAIN”
- Gift of Edward E. Ayer, 1924.1350
See Moqui Runner ~ Previous Post
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Related Images:
1931 Society of Medalists ~ “Hopi – Prayer for Rain”
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1931 Society of Medalists #3 ~ Moqui Runner and Hopi Rain Dance (reverse) ~ exhibitor: Chrysler Museum - Norfork, VA
1931 "Moqui Rain Dance" (reverse) SOM #3 ~ exhibitor: Daniel Neil Leininger, webmaster
Here are two examples of Hermon A. Mac Neil’s 1931 Society of Medalists (SOM) Issue #3 entitled “Prayer for Rain” and “Hopi” on the reverse. These show two of the 4 varied patinas that MacNeil chose for the issue. (Thanks to Gilbert Shell for sharing these sources & interesting me in this MacNeil – SOM Issue #3)
The medals are slightly oval in shape. The Obverse, shown here in a striking orange patina, can be seen in the Chrysler Museum of Norfork, Virginia. In his design Hermon MacNeil, has recaptured his 1895 image of the Moqui Runner. The title, PRAYER FOR RAIN, portrays a group of young Hopis sprinting to the right; their hands filled with snakes. The Reverse side, shown in beautiful sea green patina, bears the title, “HOPI,” a more modern transliteration of “Moqui”. It shows a group of Hopi Indian dancers handling ritualistic snakes. It is owned by our webmaster.
In a 2005 article, David T Alexander, a widely published numismatic writer, described 4 different applied patinas that were offered for the 1,713 medals released in this issue. Here is an excerpt of Alexander’s article: (NOTE: In his comments, the usual ‘reverse’ and ‘obverse’ for this medal has been switched by this author.)
1931 #3. HERMON MacNEILL. Hopi Indian Prayer for Rain.
Obv Five Hopi rain dancers, two with snakes in their mouths, one crouching to gather up snakes for return to the cottonwood enclosure set up for the ceremony. Two other dancers distract mouth-held snakes with eagle feathers. MacNeil’s sky is adapted from Hopi sand painting showing stylized rain clouds and serpentine arrows of falling rain.
Incuse HOPI in exergue. Signature H A MACNEIL incuse lower r.
Rev Dancers race from mesa onto the desert, hands full of snakes to be returned to their dens. Lightning flashes above, incuse PRAYER (vertical) FOR RAIN in exergue.
MacNeil, best known to coin collectors for his Standing Liberty Quarter of 1916-1930, wrote, “The two incidents of the Hopi Prayer for Rain on the mesas of northeastern Arizona depicted on this medal are chosen by your sculptor because of the extraordinary vital enthusiasm and power that the Indians throw into this ceremony. Having witnessed it and been thrilled by the intensity of their emotion and on further study by the complicated and perfectly natural development of this drama, I cannot help feel that in it we find a basic note underlying all religions. All these Southwest Indians, living as they do in an arid region, have developed their religion along the lines of their greatest need – water.”
MacNeil described the setting as the Kiva, An underground chamber. Members of the Snake and Antelope clans gathered snakes for six days from the compass points, above and below, “therefore from all the directions of the universe.” Poisonous snakes are included in the dance, distracted from the dancers holding them in their mouths by another dancer wielding an eagle feather. The artist witnessed several snakebites, which had no apparent effect on the exalted, fasting dancers.
MacNeil theorized that the wriggling serpent forms suggested the shape of lightning “snaking” earthward from the clouds, as seen in the sand art above. At the end of the prayer dance, the Indian raced out onto the desert, hands filled with snakes to be released into their dens as a rain cloud forms overhead. This is SOM’s first non-circular medal, showing a boldly ovoid shape. At least four distinctive patinas have been 16 observed on examples of the Hopi medal,
described below.
EDGE AND PATINA VARIETIES OBSERVED:
1. THE SOCIETY OF MEDALISTS THIRD ISSUE. Rounded rims. Light tan, sea green highlights. A.
2. Ditto. Light tan with hints of gold. A.
3. Ditto. Intense glossy hematite red. A.
4. Ditto. Bold sea-green, sharply squared rims. A.Source:
- David T. Alexander, “The Art Medal Defined” in The Medal Collectors of America Advisory, Volume 8, Number 5, May 2005, pp. 10-12. (Thanks to Gilbert Shell for sharing this source and his interest in this SOM Issue #3)
- For more on SOM see: Samuel Pennington, “The Society of Medalists”
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1901 Pan-American Exposition ~~ (Continued)
Posted by: | CommentsSculptures that Hermon A. MacNeil’s exhibited for the 1901 Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York.
The above works that Hermon A. MacNeil’s exhibited in Buffalo for the 1901 Pan-American Exposition are listed in:
“The Catalogue of the Exhibition of Fine Arts.” Pan-American Exposition: Buffalo, 1901. (p. 45-46; p. 59).
pp. 45-4. H. A. MacNeil:
#1613. The Sun Vow – Silver Medal, Paris Exposition, 1900.
#1614. The Moqui Runner – Silver Medal, Paris Exposition, 1900 (Lent by E. E. Ayer, Esq)
#1615. Bust — Agnese
#1616. Bust – [Lent by C. F. Browne, Esq.]
p. 59.
MacNeil, H. A., 145 West 55th Street, New York, N. Y. (II*) 1613-1616
*II – indicates MacNeil exhibited in “Group II – Sculpture, including medals and cameos” p. 49.
Some of these people mentioned in that exhibition record were to be long term colleagues, friends and patrons of MacNeil’s art and career.
Charles Francis Browne was a painter and friend who accompanied Hermon MacNeil and author, Hamlin Garland, to the southwest in the summer of 1895. They wanted to gain direct experience of American Indians to inform their art. What the trio found reflected in their respective painting, sculpture and writing.
MacNeil’s subsequent sculptures of Native Americans after that summer of 1895 continued a cultural focus that began with his friendship and sculpting of Black Pipe, the Sioux warrior. He first met Black Pipe at the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. The Sioux modeled for MacNeil and later worked in his studio for over a year.
Edward Everett Ayers was an art patron to both MacNeil and Browne. He had been a Civil War Calvary officer stationed in the southwestern United States. He became a lumberman who made a fortune selling railroad ties and telephone poles. He urged MacNeil to travel to see the vanishing West of the American Indian. He became an arts benefactor whose art collections are now housed by the Art Institute of Chicago, as well as, the Newberry Library.
All the above is but a small part of the history woven into this simple Exhibition catalogue entry from 1901. More later on Macneil’s mysterious “Agnese.”
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1901 Pan-American Exposition – Buffalo, New York ~~ “The Rainbow City”
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Between 1893 and 1905 Hermon Atkins MacNeil and his sculptures were involved in four World’s Fairs. The Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York (1901) was the second of these events. Popularly known as the 1901 World’s Fair in Buffalo NY, over 8 Million people attended the exhibition.
University of Deleware ~ Special Collections website offers this description;
The most unusual aspect of the Pan-American was the color scheme of its buildings. Unlike the pristine design of the “White City,” the architectural plan of the Pan-American was to build a “Rainbow City.” The buildings were done in a Spanish Renaissance style and were colored in hues of red, blue, green, and gold. The Electric Tower, the focal point of the fair, was colored deep green with details of cream white, blue, and gold. At night, thousands of electric lights outlined the buildings.
"The Sun Vow" (photo courtesy of Gib Shell)
Hermon Atkins MacNeil's "The Moqui Runner" (The Moqui Prayer for Rain -- The Returning of the Snakes) 1896, cast 1897.
In the year 1900, MacNeil returned to the United States after three years in Rome and a fourth back in Paris. He settled in New York City. Within a year, MacNeil set up a home and an adjoining studio in College Point, Long Island (now Flushing, Queens ). His studio became his work place for the next four decades.
MacNeil’s “Sun Vow” and the “Moqui Runner” were both exhibited at the 1901 Fair. The “Sun Vow” had received a silver medal at the Paris exhibition of 1900. It was exhibited again at the Columbian Exposition of 1904 — the Saint Louis World’s Fair. As the years passed, it would become his best known work. (Webmaster’s Note: It recently graced the cover of the 2010 Denver Art Museum publication, “Shaping the West: American Sculptors of the 19th Century”)
At the Buffalo Exhibition he was asked to do the pediment sculptures for the Anthropological Building, as well as a grouping known as “Despotic Age.” Craven described the work as follows:
The spirit of despotism with ruthless cruelty spreads her wings over the people of the Despotic Age, crushing them with the burden of war and conquest and draging along the victims of rapine (plunder), a half savage figure sounds a spiral horn in a spirit of wild emotion. (Craven, SIA, p. 518)
MacNeil’s sculpture design for the Award Medals at the Pan American Exhibition, Buffalo, NY 1901 (front) [ photo credits: CCya at http://www.coincommunity.com/forum/topic.asp?ARCHIVE=true&TOPIC_ID=25738
MacNeil designed the official gold medal (displayed here in silver) struck in celebration of the Pan American Exhibition. His commissioned design bears a youthful woman standing beside a buffalo on the obverse side. She represents the triumph of the intellect over physical power. The reverse depicts two Indians with a sharing a peace pipe. One, a North American Indian, extends the extends the pipe to the South American Indian. Craven notes that
MacNeil's sculpture design for the Award Medals at the Pan American Exhibition, Buffalo, NY 1901 (reverse). All award medals were struck from the same design whether in Bronze, silver or gold. These are silver medals.
MacNeil chose to portray the theme of “Pan-American friendship through images of the red man, not the white man.” (Craven, SIA, P. 519). We can also observe that this choice extended MacNeil’s selection of native people into a second continent. [Photo credits CCya at http://www.coincommunity.com/forum/topic.asp?ARCHIVE=true&TOPIC_ID=25738]
President William McKinley was assassinated at the fair. On Sept. 6, 1901, Leon Czolgosz shot President McKinley in the Temple of Music, a pavilion of the Buffalo, New York, Pan-American Exposition. Eight days later, on Sept. 14, McKinley was dead. We do not know if MacNeil was present at the Fair when the President was attacked. In some sense, President McKinley’s overshadowed the rest of the Exposition. Buffalo promoted the event in order to be seen as a prosperous, modern, technologically-advanced city,. Instead Buffalo became seen as the city of the assassination.
McKinley making his last public speech before he was assassinated, Buffalo, New York, September 5, 1901. (His pose in this photo resembles that of MacNeil's statue of him in 1904). (Credit: Frances B. Johnson-Ohio Historical Society-AL00501)
In the years following The Buffalo Exhibition, a series of important commissions would raise him to prominence as a major American sculptor. One of those was, oddly enough, was the McKinley Monument Statue and Plaza at the front of the Ohio State Capitol Building where McKinley served two terms as the governor of the state.
The only remaining building of the fair is the New York State Pavilion. It is now the home of the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society. (see map) A boulder marking the site of McKinley’s assassination was placed in a grassy median on Fordham Drive
1901 Pan-American Exposition links: (active as of this posting date)
- Buffalo History – Black Faces at the Pan American Exposition of 1901, Buffalo, New York Pan American Exposition of 1901, Buffalo, New York – with Map
- Illuminations Revisiting the Buffalo Pan-American Exposition of 1901 – Costs of the Pan-American Exposition Compared to other International Exhibitions
- Pan-American Exposition – Buffalo 1901 Souvenir Textile
- The Pan American Exposition — Buffalo in 1901
- Pan Am World Fair Buffalo
- Schiller Institute- President Wm. McKinley- Assasinated 1901
- The Last Speech of William McKinley
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Book Source: http://www.cityofeverett.com/Everett_files/historical/herman_macneil.htm
- Today is the 145th Anniversary of Hermon MacNeil’s birth.
- The above celebrates his life from the Everett, Massachusetts city website.
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The Moqui (Moki, Hopi) Prayer Runner by Hermon A. MacNeil
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Hermon Atkins MacNeil's "The Moqui Runner" (The Moqui Prayer for Rain -- The Returning of the Snakes) 1896, cast 1897.
The year was 1895. Hermon MacNeil, along with two friends (painter, Charles Francis Browne, and author, Hamlin Garland), spent the summer traveling and living in the Territories of New Mexico and Arizona. There they sought direct experience among the Indians that would give birth in them to a new, truly American art. “The Indian caught my fancy as it had with many young sculptors,” wrote H.A. MacNeil in his “Autobiographical Sketch.” They became eye-witnesses to the life and culture of the Hopi (formerly known as Moki, and Moqui) people.
“We found Indians a plenty and perhaps because I was keenly interested in them I was in heaven and I flared to a high pitch, working from sunrise to dark,” wrote the twenty-nine year old MacNeil. Like many ethnologists of that period, the Snake Dance deeply impacted his cultural awareness and artistic curiosity.
The Snake Dance ritual involved fifty or more men and lasted for ten days. As a part of the ceremony the priests would dance with live snakes in their months (presumably making the reptiles the bearers of the prayers of the priests). The climax of the ceremony involved a four mile run returning the snakes (now endued with prayers) to their natural home.
The long black locks streaming in the wind follow the runners path back to nature and the ancestors.
“There was something superb in all this,” wrote Garland in his “Among the Moki.” Something natural, strong, and wholesome.” Garland described the Runners, with their black hair flowing down over their shoulders, “They ran with the chest thrown out and with light step, which only three hundred years of daily climbing to and fro on this cliff could give. It was like seeing one of the old Greek games.” (Among the Moki).
MacNeil never forgot the indelible visions of these moments in his artist’s eye. He writes, “Every artist has at various times strong impressions that he longs to express. The sensation received by me from this dance was without doubt the deepest I had received. There was an abandon, fury, and sincerity.”
One reviewer of MacNeil’s work from this period captures their energy and abandon by saying:
MacNeil captures the energy and fury of the ceremonial "Return of the Snakes" in the grip and gaze of the runner.
“In sculpture those fresh, spirited Indians, by H. A. MacNeil, are so strong and full of vigor that they command at once one’s admiration and respect. The strongly developed and “straight-as-an-arrow style”surely marks the Indian as nature’s nobleman. MacNeil knows just how to bring out their striking characteristics, and even on a small scale the work is grandly conceived.” (Sculptors at the American Art Exhibition.” Arts for America 4 (November 1895) p. 150.)
Snake Dance – For a short history see: — http://www.brownielocks.com/snakedance.html
HISTORY NOTE: MacNeil’s experience with the Hopi follows less than five years after tragic deaths of December 1890 — namely, Wounded Knee Massacre — The killing of Chief Sitting Bull and the murder of Chief Big Foot. For more details of this history view”
http://www.lastoftheindependents.com/wounded.htm and
Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wounded_Knee_Massacre
