Provenance: Private collection, Michigan Frank McCarthy painted Native Americans from many tribes and in many regions of the country, but none thrilled him like the Plains Indians of the 1800s. “We still see him today in the collective memory of our national folklore: the proud, bold, graceful warrior-hunter on horseback, the Plains Indian in brilliant panoply of paint and feathers, shouting a blood cry as he charges headlong against his enemy. We see him as a mystic soul living close to nature, moving his tepee villages at will to follow the migrations of the buffalo, the life-giving rains, the greening grass, and leaving the land as he found it,” Elmer Kelton wrote in The Art of Frank McCarthy. “The image is real. It flourished during a brief and colorful period in the American past. It is a favorite image of painter Frank McCarthy, whose works evoke its spectacle and drama, its heroism and its tragedy.” Lost Tracks in Medicine Creek speaks to the artist’s affection for the Plains Indians and the power they wield in American lore and legend.