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Post by grahamew on Apr 2, 2020 6:13:38 GMT -5
I thought we had a thread about him already, but maybe not. He was working from Fort Sheridan and Ellis Avenue, Fort Sheridan, Illinois and these images seem to have been taken 1891 - 93 at least. He took photographers pf the Ghost Dance prisoners before they went off on the Wild West tour with Cody, but some of these were taken at the time of The World's Fair in 1893:  Rocky Bear  Black Bear  Medicine (Medicine Horse?)  No Neck  No Neck  Curley - presumably a World's Fair photo  Rain in the Face - World's Fair?  Jack Red Cloud  Wounded with Many Arrows  Unidentified  Grey Bear?  Kicking Bear  Brave  Last Horse  Rain in the Face  Lone Bull  Pretty Face  Bear Feathers  Joe Bush  Interpreter Jules Lorin   No Neck  Kicking Bear and Short Bull. Not sure about this one. Small print says de Graf.  Short Bull and Kicking Bear  Ellis Standing Bear  Bear Pipe  I'm sure we had individual images of all of these at some point...  Short Bull  Kicking Bear  Unidentified. Same kind of pose and same studio as the image below, which is credited to Spencer. Stilwell, as far as I can work out, sold other people's images.  Unidentified  Lone Bear Note: DH Spencer? A partner? Brother |
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Post by Dietmar on Apr 2, 2020 8:14:32 GMT -5
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Post by Dietmar on Apr 2, 2020 8:16:48 GMT -5
Curley above is not the famous Crow scout as indicated, but Curley Head, an Arikara scout.
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Post by grahamew on Apr 2, 2020 8:34:01 GMT -5
Thanks. I'll add those we don't have and some more...  Brings the White/Owns the White Horse  Medicine Horse and Know his Voice  High Eagle  Lone Dog The same man a few years down the line?  See: amertribes.proboards.com/thread/3093/pretty-weasel Rain in the Face   Ghost Dance prisoners at Fort Sheridan - identifications by Dietmar  Eagle Star  Rain in the Face  Jack Red Cloud  Jack Red Cloud  Johnny Bruguier  Little Wolf |
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Post by grahamew on Apr 2, 2020 9:41:50 GMT -5
 Yankton Charley/Charlie or Plenty Wolves. The backdrop is the same as in the photo of Eagle Star below. |
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Post by grahamew on Apr 5, 2020 6:08:56 GMT -5
 War Bonnet  Another Spencer...?  This one looks like it has the Spencer-style name tag at the bottom  American Horse  American Horse |
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Post by Dietmar on Apr 5, 2020 16:44:34 GMT -5
This is a Lakota called Hand, who toured with 'Buffalo Bill' Cody in 1893: |
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Post by grahamew on Apr 5, 2020 17:11:26 GMT -5
We have an issue with Spencer in as much as this background is the same as this:   And we usually assume this series was by Barry. Granted, photographers at this time were notorious for selling the works of others (with or without permission) with their own frame, but it makes me wonder. |
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Post by Dietmar on Apr 5, 2020 17:39:57 GMT -5
As you said at the beginning of this thread, Grahame, Spencer took several series of Lakota portraits over the years. The first series is from 1891, when he photographed the Fort Sheridan prisoners. I think we can identify most of these pictures.
As we just have seen in the Rain-in-the-Face-thread, Spencer photographed some of the men and women who participated in the World´s Fair exhibition in Chicago in 1893. We have portraits of Rain-in-the-Face, Curly Head (Arikara) and War Bonnet (although this last one shows a different backdrop).
Around the same time he also photographed the performers of Buffalo Bill´s Show, who were at the time of the World´s Fair in Chicago. Most of these portraits of 1893 show the same 'style" in the way the Sioux are sitting and fronting the camera. I gathered more than twenty of them, most of the pictured men wear feather-bonnets. (see portraits of Ellis Standing Bear, High Bear, Little Wolf)
There is a list of all performers in "Unfair Labor?: American Indians and the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago" by David R. M. Beck (Univ. of Nebraska Press), page 218 f
(Hand is also listed as a performer there)
There seem to be other series with different backdrops. I´m not yet sure when Spencer took these.
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Post by Dietmar on Apr 5, 2020 17:46:53 GMT -5
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Post by Dietmar on Apr 5, 2020 18:14:34 GMT -5
As there are other pictures by Barry with the same backdrop which show for example Crow or Hidatsa Indians, I have little doubt that these were not taken by Barry.
I´m also sure that the Rocky Bear photo was photographed by Spencer, not only because he wears the same outfit as in another 1893 shot.
My conclusion is that both photographers used the same backdrop! Remarkable, isn´t it?
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Post by grahamew on Apr 6, 2020 3:50:53 GMT -5
I think you may be right. The wooden fence and the fake rocks seen in the Barry photos turn up in Barry photos with different backdrops, but not in the Spencer photos, but then we have Hairy Chin dressed as Uncle Sam taken by Barry in 1889 (and that year has to be correct because he died shortly after the photo was taken), four years later than the Sitting Bull Combination photos... This is really odd. The only other Barry photos with this backdrop that I can access at the moment are a handful of Arikara or Hidatsa, a couple labelled Crow and the one of Gall and his family (the one in which he wears the long buckskin jacket and leggings and then strips to his breechclout)and Gall doesn't look particularly heavy so it would fit with the Sitting Bull Combination date, although there are other Barry photos of them, clearly from the same session, judging by their clothes, that have a different backdrop. Meantime, this has the look of another Spencer: Red Elk  |
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Post by Dietmar on Apr 6, 2020 4:10:38 GMT -5
Yeah, Red Elk seems to be another of the 1893 Buffalo Bill performers.
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Post by Dietmar on Apr 6, 2020 4:18:37 GMT -5
This might not be a Spencer photo, but it shows Buffalo Bill, Rocky Bear and John Shangreau in Chicago in 1893 at the time of the World´s Fair:  |
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Post by grahamew on Apr 6, 2020 7:16:11 GMT -5
.jpg) Another Lakota visitor to The World's Fair - George Sword at left. Here's a photo of some of Cody's troupe taken in Chicago in 1893 and you can see the subjects of Spencer's photos among them. I wish we had a better, bigger image of this...  I am right in saying Kicking Bear and Short Bull had left after they returned from Europe, aren't I? To put Spencer's Indian photos in perspective, he took images of the Ghost Dance prisoners at Fort Sheridan in 1891 and as far as we know, took images of the Lakota at the World's Fair in 1893 - those with Cody and those, like Rain in the Face, whose engagement had been arranged by men like Toddy??? A few more:  Charge on the Enemy  Red Feather  Ring Hawk  No Neck and family  Lone Bear - full figure  Little Wolf  Come after Him  Wooden Leg I wonder if these are colourised postcard versions of Spencer images, judging by the name tag in the case of Last Horse and the style of bonnet in the case of Black Eagle:   Last Horse |
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