The Medicine Man, modeled 1899
Bronze
31 1/8 x 29 1/8 x 8 7/8 in
Biography
The sculptor who more than any other captured the grave dignity and the nobility of the American Indian was Cyrus E. Dallin, he bestowed upon his subjects those innate qualities that had been almost wholly obscured to the eyes of the white man during the decades of hatred and conflict.
Cyrus Dallin was one of the first sculptors to recognize the plight of the American Indian and to devote his life and art to making dramatic and heroic monuments, which proclaimed their point of view. He sculpts from his boyhood associations with American Indians and his fond memories, “Artistically, I feel that to the Indian I owe my first glimpse into the great world of art. It was his beautifully decorated costumes, and his noble bearing that first awakened my imagination to the charm of the picturesque. I shall never forget with what joy as a boy I used to follow the Indians about and study with eager curiosity every detail of their dress.”
Dallin was born in 1861 in a log cabin in Springville, Utah, a Mormon village, which his parents, as pioneers, helped establish eleven years earlier. Springville was located near a tribe of friendly Ute Indians, who traded with the settlers. Cyrus Dallin made friends with the Ute boys. He enjoyed playing “warrior games” with the Ute boys on a clay bank. In a 1927 interview, Dallin explained the “warrior games” was the beginning of his interest in sculpture: “When we got tired, we used to sit down at the clay bank and make models of the animals that roamed the prairie in those days including antelope, wolves, buffalo, and horses. That was where I got my liking for modeling, there at the clay bank beside the village of Ute teepees.”
At the age of eighteen, Cyrus joined his father in the silver mining business. For Dallin, however, this line of work was temporary; he wanted to become a sculptor. His income from the mine paid for art school in Provo. As fate would have it, a layer of white talc clay was unearthed in the mine. Dallin used the clay to sculpt two heads, which were admired by C.H. Blanchard, a wealthy investor in the mine. Blanchard offered to pay for Dallin’s fare to Boston, where he could receive a formal art education.
Once Dallin arrived in Boston, he began working in Truman Bartlett’s studio in exchange for art lessons. He also worked in a terracotta studio and as a pot-boiler, making wax figures for window displays. After two years, he opened his own studio and in 1884 sculpted his first figure, Indian Chief.
Dallin traveled to Paris in 1888 to study at the Académie Julian with Chapu. The following summer, Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show visited Paris. Dallin delighted in seeing American Indians again and visited the camp daily, which provided continued inspiration for his sculptures of American Indians.
