THE POW-WOW BY WILLIAM G. GAUL
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William G. Gaul The Pow-Wow c. 1890 Oil on canvas 18 1/8 inches x 24 1/8 inches |
| Born in Jersey City, New Jersey, Gilbert Gaul was a student at the National Academy of Design from 1872-1876. A New York-based artist, he was once described as "the most capable of American military painters." His reputation in his day was sufficient to earn him election to the National Academy of Design in 1882. A busy illustrator and a friend of Frederic Remington, Gaul specialized in western subjects, too. He was one of the five special agents who took the census of 1890 among the Indians, illustrating the "Report on Indians Taxed and Indians Not Taxed" with a strong portrait of Sitting Bull painted from life. Traveling extensively, he gathered impressions firsthand and in 1890 offered an unvarnished picture of life on the Sioux reservation. He did not dress up his Indians or show them engaged in activities of an earlier day. Rather, he recorded exactly what he saw. The tone of The Pow-Wow gives it a dimension beyond the literal, making it a statement of the plains Indian in transition. Gaul observed, "The appearance of the Indian is fast changing. The day of buffalo robes and buckskins is passing away. With the Sioux breechcloths are no more. The Indian is no longer a gaily bedecked individual. Most of his furs and feathers have disappeared simultaneously with the deerskin." There is a fine feeling for the expanse of the Dakotas here, but also a sense of confinement, a realization that the horizon has permanently shrunk for the buffalo-huting warriors of yesteryear who now listlessly wait at the agency to receive their beef rations on issue day. |