Forging America: The Wolf Family Collection

Cyrus Edwin Dallin

The Scout

Auction Closed

April 20, 05:26 PM GMT

Estimate

100,000 - 150,000 USD

Lot Details

Description

Cyrus Edwin Dallin

1861 - 1944

The Scout

bronze

35 in. (88.9 cm.) high

Conceived in 1910; copyrighted in 1912.

Graham Gallery, New York
Wolf Family Collection No. 0098 (acquired from the above on November 5, 1975)

P.P. Caproni & Brother, Caproni Casts: American Indians and Other Sculptures by Cyrus E. Dallin, Boston, 1915, no. 2904, p. 4, illustration of another cast
Rell G. Francis, Cyrus E. Dallin: Let Justice Be Done, Springville, Utah, 1976, p. 54
Exh. Cat., Corning, New York, Rockwell Museum, Cyrus E. Dallin: His Small Bronzes and Plasters, 1995, nos. 13, 14, pp. 46-48, illustrations of other casts

New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, Bicentennial Exhibition: 200 Years of American Sculpture, 1976, no. 49, fig. 195, p. 140, illustrated
Denver, Denver Art Museum, 2003-23 (on loan)

Cyrus Edwin Dallin’s parents were pioneers who moved West to help establish the Springville, Utah settlement. Growing up in this frontier town, Dallin had fond memories of playing with the Indigenous children from the local Ute tribe. “They had a culture and refinement that was lacking in our settlement inside the adobe wall,” the sculptor recalled (as quoted in Rell G. Francis, Cyrus E. Dallin: Let Justice Be Done, Springville, Utah, 1976, p. 36). The respect he garnered for their traditions and customs from a young age greatly informed the manner in which Dallin represented Native Americans artistically.

Dallin conceived of The Scout in 1910, at which point he had already produced a number of Native American equestrian subjects including A Signal of Peace (1890), The Medicine Man (1899) and Appeal to the Great Spirit (1908). The neoclassical equestrian form had long been reserved for military heroes and notable men in history. Thus, Dallin's decision to represent Indigenous men on horseback demonstrated a great deal of respect for Native Americans in field of American sculpture. The figure portrayed in The Scout is intelligently rendered and thoughtful in his pose.

The inscribed #3 along the edge of the base indicates that the present work is one of the earliest versions of The Scout that Dallin ever cast. The sculptor revisited The Scout in 1914 in order to model a heroic, ten-foot version of this well-received Native American subject.