NAI-U-CHI: CHIEF OF THE BOW, ZUNI 1895 BY CHARLES FRANCIS BROWNE
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Charles Francis Browne Nai-U-Chi: Chief Of The Bow, Zuni 1895 1895 Oil on canvas 18 1/2 inches x 12 3/4 inches |
| A native of Natick, Massachusetts, Charles Francis Browne studied at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and later in Paris. In the summer of 1895 Browne and two friends from Chicago embarked on an adventure in the West, a tour of the Indian country of Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico. Although Browne was attracted "by the strangeness, picturesqueness and real interest" of the Indians, he was the least influenced of the three by what he had seen. Landscape, not genre painting or portraiture, was his teaching specialty at the Art Institute of Chicago, and it was his work in that field that earned him election as an associate in the National Academy of Design in 1913. Nevertheless, Browne did paint Indians in 1895, including this creditable likeness of the Zuni notable Naiuchi, elder brother in the most prestigious and secretive of the Zuni esoteric orders, the priesthood of the Bow. Naiuchi held this office until 1903, the year before his death. |