Edward Kemeys

The present work depicts Chief Sitting Bull, also referred to as Tatanka Yotanka in Sioux culture. Sitting Bull is one of the most well-known chiefs in Native American history and a respected veteran of the Battle of the Little Bighorn in the Great Sioux War of 1876. His image was widely disseminated in the 1880s and early 90s following his participation in Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West show. Edward Kemeys modeled Chief Sitting Bull (Tatanka-Yotanka) circa 1884 following the Chief’s increased involvement with the Wild West shows.

This example was authorized by the artist during his lifetime and cast by the Winslow Brothers Co. foundry based in Chicago. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Winslow Bros. gained recognition for their galvanoplastic process of casting bronze works by the nation’s leading sculptors. “By special arrangement with Mr. Edward Kemeys, one of America’s best known and most successful sculptors, we are authorized to reproduce in bronze, by the Galvanoplastic process, replicas of his best original work,” the foundry wrote in a pamphlet published in 1894 (Winslow Brothers Co., “Edward Kemeys, Sculptor,” Chicago, 1894). By using an original clay model of the sculptor’s relief of Chief Sitting Bull, the Winslow Bros. employed the electrotyping method to execute the present work into bronze. Given that this work is lifetime and authorized, it is one of only a few examples of its kind.