Käsebier's Informal Portraits
Gertrude Käsebier's Indian Portraits
Video Transcription
A portion of the Gertrude Käsebier Collection of Sioux Indian photography is what I would term "informal." These informal portraits differ greatly from the very stately daguerreotypes and the earlier types of photographs of chiefs, of different tribal nations that traveled to the U.S. capitol—to Washington, D.C.—and for those images that individuals of the twentieth century were becoming familiar with. So Käsebier has the opportunity to spend many hours in the studio with the group of a dozen Indians from the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show. And she gets those very stylized and stoic portraits of the Indians, but she also wanted to capture the raw nature of their personalities, of their character.
And how did she do that best? I think that it's in the informal portraits that I see the individuality of the sitters really coming forth. That she was able to get these men to engage with her and relax with her in a way that Chief Iron Tail would for his first portrait remove a headdress and sit with his linen shirt in a very contemplative moment, in an intimate moment where you see the man versus the chief; where you see someone who is vulnerable versus someone who is on stage.
Very often the photographs that we see emanating from the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show are studio portraits in maybe Europe, in London, where there's a studio backdrop that gives the idea of maybe an outdoor scene but you that it's an Elliott & Fry cabinet card from the 1880s, and you know that it's not a natural setting for these Indians, but it's along the more formal line of portraiture. Or you see a stereoview image of the Indians rushing into the arena for the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show on their horses. And so you get that moment of being at the show if you have never attended the show.
But the informal portraits in the studio with Käsebier are moments where she's able to interact with these men and get them to let down their guard. Or she turns on a moment where they might not even realize they're being photographed and capture the downtime when they don't have to be knowing that they're being photographed or posing for seconds at a time.
Of course not smiling because that wasn't a convention. Although Joe Black Fox does smirk at her in one of the photographs—one of my favorite photographs—where he's gazing right at her, you see him with that just slight smile, holding that cigarette. It's so different from anything else we're used to seeing at that time—or really even today.
So how she gets Chief Joe Black Fox to really become a friend with her at that moment in time, which continues in reality afterwards. We know she developed a very strong friendship with this core group of Indians that I think really allow her to make some of the more special images that reflect the character and the individuality of each of these men.
Video produced and edited by, Rebecca Wingo, University of Nebraska—Lincoln
Videography, Jeremy Goodman, Buffalo Bill Historical Center
Featuring, Michelle Delaney, Smithsonian Institution
The William F. Cody Archive
codyarchive.org
2013
Senior Digital Editor, Douglas Seefeldt, Ball State University
