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Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné
Patricia Hills, PhD, Founder and Director | Abigael MacGibeny, MA, Project Manager

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Photo: St. Louis County Historical Society
07.5 Ojibwe Groups

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, 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 painted 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

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Hills no. 7.5.4
Baur no. 23
Ojibwe Women
Alternate titles: Chippewa Indian women; Group picture of Indian Women; Indian Women
1857
Oil on canvas
19 1/2 x 20 in. (49.5 x 50.8 cm)
Initialed lower right: E.J.
Description / Remarks

Hills, 2021: Johnson traveled to Superior, Wisconsin and Minnesota Territory in 1856–57. Although many of his Superior works are dated 1856, there is no evidence that he made any of his works relating to Ojibwe people in 1856.

St. Louis County Historical Society, Eastman Johnson Collection: Paintings of Chippewa Indians, 1961, p. 2, no. 13: "3 women sitting, 1 standing, 1 child in carrier on lap, being fed by mother."

Provenance
Eastman Johnson estate/Mrs. Eastman Johnson, New York, 1906 (by bequest)
Richard Teller Crane, 1908 or 1909 (by purchase)
Presented by Richard Teller Crane to the City of Duluth, Minnesota, 1909
St. Louis County Historical Society, Duluth, Minnesota, February 1929 (by donation)
Exhibitions
1908 American Museum of Natural History
American Museum of Natural History, New York, Loan exhibition, c. June–December 1908, no. 2.
1939 Brooklyn Museum
Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, New York, An American Genre Painter: Eastman Johnson, 1824–1906, January 18, 1939–February 26, 1940. (Exhibition catalogue: Baur 1940), no. 23, as Indian Women.
References
Baur 1940
Baur, John I. H. An American Genre Painter: Eastman Johnson, 1824–1906. Brooklyn, NY: Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, 1940. Exhibition catalogue (1939 Brooklyn Museum), p. 61, no. 23, as Indian Women.
Davis 1961
Davis, Edward W. "Seegwin: A Legend of the Fur Trade." Minnesota History Magazine 37, no. 6 (June 1961), pp. 235–54, illus. p. 235, as Chippewa Indian women.
SLCHS 1961
St. Louis County Historical Society. Eastman Johnson Collection: Paintings of Chippewa Indians. Duluth, MN: St. Louis County Historical Society, 1961, p. 2, no. 13, as Indian Women.
Johnston 1983a
Johnston, Patricia Condon. Eastman Johnson's Lake Superior Indians. Afton, MN: Johnston Publishing, 1983, p. 58, illus., as Ojibwe Women.
Hills Examination / Opinion
Examination date(s): 1970-06
Examination notes: Faces of lower 3 women—restored? Dark greens; reds and brown of costumes.
Record last updated November 22, 2021. Please note that the information on this and all pages is periodically reviewed and subject to change.
Citation: Hills, Patricia, and Abigael MacGibeny. "Ojibwe Women, 1857 (Hills no. 7.5.4)." Eastman Johnson Catalogue Raisonné. www.eastmanjohnson.org/catalogue/entry.php?id=62 (accessed on March 28, 2024).