211 Nyutchi, The Old War Chief, Zuni

SOLD
Winning Bid Undisclosed
This item SOLD at 2016 Apr 02 @ 14:08UTC-7 : PDT/MST
Category Art
Auction Currency USD
Start Price 25,000.00 USD
Estimated at 50,000.00 - 75,000.00 USD
Nyutchi, The Old War Chief, Zuni
Artist: Farny, HenryDate of Birth: 1847-1916
Medium: Watercolor and Gouache
Dimensions: 20 1/8 x 9 1/2 inches
Signed: Signed lower right and titled
Verso:

Born in the contentious Alsace region of France, Henry Farny’s romantic notions of the noble savage were tempered by his encounters with real Indians when he and his family emigrated to America. Exploited and ignored, the Indians Farny met in the West made him rail against the official policy of forced resettlement, barren reservations and inadequate rationing. Farny’s progressive, egalitarian stance towards Native Americans and his sympathies with their plight grate against the general view at the end of the 19th century that the submission of the Indian was sad but inexorable. His Indians, as a result, are survivors, tough, hardy souls fighting to adapt to the white man’s ways. In 1882, Farny painted illustrations for a series of articles on the Zuni Indians for Century Magazine. Nyutchi, The Old War Chief—Zuni appears to have sprung from this project at a later date. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Farny’s Indians are unidealized individuals. Nyutchi’s pride is his own, born of his experience. His stoicism is not some ideological pose, nor is his stance as tentative. The shadow he casts on the pueblo floor, in the shape of a crow or eagle, suggests the strength of his spirit.