As construction moves forward on its new 52,000-square-foot facility, the Southern Ute Cultural Center and Museum is adding to its collection of more than 1,000 artifacts. Most recently, noted scholar and senior curator of American Indian Art at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, MO, Gaylord Torrence, has donated a unique deer hide coat from his private collection to the museum. Continued...
This unusual deer hide coat features a depiction of President Theodore Roosevelt. A portrait of this scale is unprecedented in Plains Indians’ pictographic art and is considered quite unique, according to Gaylord Torrence, who donated the coat to the Southern Ute Cultural Center and Museum. Torrence is senior curator of American Indian Art at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City. |
The unusual coat features a depiction of Teddy Roosevelt, captioned “the president.”
Torrence concludes that the painting was almost certainly made between 1901 and 1909, when Roosevelt served in office. It may have been made as a gift to be presented to Roosevelt when a Ute delegation traveled to Washington, D.C., in an effort to halt the allotment and sale of reservation lands in 1905. For some unknown reason, the coat was never delivered. However, it’s more likely that the coat was created to be worn as a patriotic gesture on the occasion of a visit by Roosevelt to the Ute reservation.
The two-sided coat may have been painted by as many as three Ute artists at different times. In addition to the portrait of President Roosevelt, one side of the coat features scenes from a reservation camp, including human figures, horses, dogs, trees and dwellings. Also visible are painted teepees, cabins, a wall-tent, wagons and an early automobile as well as a train crossing a trestle bridge, which suggests that passing trains were a common experience for those living on the reservation.
The second hide, which probably was created during the 1880s, is painted with minimal images. These include an Indian warrior on a horse, a portrait of well-known Ute leader Buckskin Charlie, an elephant wearing what appears to be a Navajo blanket on its back as it might have been seen in a circus, and a portrait of a white man.
“The rich pictorial information and the framed image of Roosevelt make this coat historically important as a remarkable example of reservation-era artistic expression,” notes Dr. Torrence. “The firmly documented Ute origin contributes to its rarity.”
Mr. Torrence, a nationally recognized scholar of Native North American art and an expert in parfleche Native American bags, purchased the coat from the Collection of Wallace Stark in 2000. Stark had been a trusted friend of the Ute peoples while he was a government-employed carpenter working on the Uintah-Ouray Ute Reservation in northeastern Utah from 1884 to 1924. Several other important artifacts in the museum’s permanent collection have come from the Stark Collection.
The 30-inch-by-43-inch deer hide coat will be displayed prominently in the museum’s permanent gallery when the new facility opens in June 2011. The 52,000-square-foot museum will be more than 10 times larger than the Tribe’s former museum. It will house the Tribe’s existing collection of more than 1,000 artifacts and provide space as the collection grows. It also will include a 450-seat media room, permanent and temporary exhibit rooms, arts and crafts classrooms, and gathering spaces for Tribal and community functions.
Funding for the Southern Ute Cultural Center and Museum, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, is being provided through the Southern Ute Tribe as well as through contributions from members and donors. More information about the museum is at their website. |