Catalogue Entry
In the summer of 1856—soon after his late 1855 return to the United States from Europe—Johnson traveled west to Superior, Wisconsin, to visit his brother Reuben Johnson and his sister Sarah Osgood Johnson and her husband William Henry Newton. Superior was a growing town, specifically growing on land that had been Ojibwe territory; as many speculators were doing at that time, Johnson made some real estate investments. While in Superior he made portraits of family members and other residents. In 1857 he turned down a commission from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow to draw a portrait of Longfellow’s daughters in favor of a second trip to Superior and the Lake Superior region, including part of what was then Minnesota Territory. As he wrote to Longfellow on June 3, 1857,
One might reasonably wonder what attraction that wild region can have for an artist, in comparison with such advantages as would result to me from your kind & flattering offer, the patronage of the most celebrated in the most refined of places. Perhaps I cannot entirely justify it, but in a visit to that country last season I found so much of the picturesque, & of a character so much to my taste & in my line, that I then determined to employ this summer or a portion of it in making sketches of Frontier life, a national feature of our present condition & a field for art that is full of interest, & freshness & pleasing nature, & yet that has been but little treated [Quoted Carbone 1999a, p. 36].
That summer Johnson set out with local guide Stephen Bunga to see and depict Ojibwe encampments and people. He created a distinct body of work including eighteen paintings and twenty-five drawings of encampments, individuals, and groups that are an important record of Ojibwe life at that time, as well as Johnson’s interests and developing style. —AM
MacGibeny, 2022: The existence of this drawing is derived from the lithograph of the same subject which is documented as being made after a work by Johnson. Although the original work was said to be a painting, it is more likely that it was a drawing. As noted by Scott Nielsen, a Johnson relative by marriage, the Superior Chronicle building was torn down due to disrepair in 1855 before Johnson arrived in 1856; however, a daguerreotype existing at that time could have served as the source for Johnson's drawing. See the linked image of the print for the likeness of the presumed drawing.
Wisconsin Historical Society website description of the lithograph Chronicle Office in 1855, accessed August 18, 2020: "Chronicle newspaper office, the first building on the townsite of Superior, built in 1853 by William C. Howenstine, John T. Morgan and August Zachau. The building was located on what was later West 2nd Street between Robertson Avenue and the Nemadji River, near the natural dock used by early schooners. Following is a quote from Harry Ashton, 'The man in the doorway is John C. Wise. The gentleman reading the newspaper is D. George Morrison. The gentleman leaning up against the fence is Washington Ashton, the man who owned the newspaper and also associated with him was John C. Wise. The man with the cap on is James Ritchie. The man with the hat on is Richard Relf, and the dog appearing in the picture belongs to James Ritchie.' The image is a lithograph after the painting by Eastman Johnson."
Also owned by: University of Wisconsin Libraries, Wisconsin; Wisconsin Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin
See all Prints after Works by Johnson.