Peter Rindisbacher 3
by Elizabeth CampbellPeter Rindisbacher was the first artist of European descent to portray the First Nations people of the Great Plains. He was meticulous in recording the detail of their garb and ornaments, and was recorded as painting very accurate likenesses, also.
The Artist was a Young Man shows some of his earliest portraits, those he executed of Inuit people encountered at various points along the Colonists’ northern sea route. Even as a teenager he was able to capture facial expressions and details in the unique clothing in the short time he was able to meet these people. Having attempted the same in art classes where the model was actually posing for a portrait, I can vouch for this being a tremendous skill (one I did not excel at, I might add)!
Rindisbacher’s scenes were portrayed by someone who had obviously been there and studied carefully the means, attitudes, apparel, and environment of the people he painted.
A Labrador Eskimo in a sealskin kayak, c. 1821 (Canadian Heritage Gallery)
Inside an Indian tent 1824 (National Archives of Canada)
Indian hunters pursuing buffalo in the early spring ca. 1822 (National Archives of Canada)
Tags: 1821 Group, First Nations, Peter Rindisbacher, Swiss Colonists
November 19th, 2009 at 9:42 pm
Thank you very much for the stories on Peter Rindisbacher. I had not seen many of his pictures before. They are very nice, and valuable.
Awhile ago when I was researching Galena, Illinois, I bumped into a story about some Swiss people who came to the Red River Settlement in 1821, and left a couple of years later. They also went to St. Louis, then back up to Illinois, and to Galena by the end of the Black Hawk Indian War in 1832. I have no idea what I was searching for when I found it, but here is the link:
http://jodaviess.ilgenweb.net/Obits/JChetlain.htm
One very small quibble with the article by Clifford Wilson you gave us a link to in the Part One – Galena is in Illinois, not Wisconsin (in the northwestern corner, very close to Wisconsin and Iowa). In the obit, the town of Grundy Center, Iowa, is probably less than a hundred miles straight west of Galena, Illinois.
Keep up the good work!