Verbal Description: Wendy Red Star, Déaxitchish / Pretty Eagle, 2014

Narrator: This work is part of artist Wendy Red Star’s 1880 Crow Peace Delegation series. Each print is 24 inches tall, and around 17 inches wide. In these works, Red Star manipulates reproductions of historical portraits taken by a white man, Charles Milton Bell, in 1880. The original photographs are black and white, and document a delegation of Apsáalooke (or Crow) leaders who met with the U.S. government to negotiate land rights and tribal borders. At the time, the Northern Pacific Railroad was set to be built through Apsáalooke territory, and the tribe sent a group to advocate for the area’s preservation. 

In both prints, Chief Pretty Eagle sits in an armless chair. The photos depict him in the same pose, as if taken moments apart at slightly different angles, with his gaze extending beyond the camera in different directions. 

In both photos, Pretty Eagle is unsmiling, and sits with his arms crossed in his lap and his left hand loosely holding an axe that rests in his lap. Red Star has outlined the contours of his outfit and body in a bright red ink that contrasts with the grey tones of the original image. Around the edges of the figure and throughout the background, Red Star has added notations in the same red ink. Some of these writings simply note the accoutrements the wearer has on, such as an arrow which points to a ring on his right hand and reads “bone ring”. Other annotations provide insight into the significance of certain aspects of Pretty Eagle’s clothing. One such example of this is a note on the right-hand photograph with an arrow that points at a fur trim on his shirt. The note reads, “ermine on shirt, captured gun”. Red Star also writes first person annotations from Pretty Eagle’s perspective in the margins to disclose information about the sitter in these portraits. In the right photograph here, Red Star has written, “My body sold to a collector for $500.00 and kept for 72 years at the American Museum of Natural History. My people brought my remains back to Crow Country on June 4, 1994. My remains are now at Pretty Eagle Point, Bighorn Canyon”. In the left photograph, Red Star has drawn a speech bubble emerging from the mouth of the figure that reads “Déaxitchish”. 

In this series, Wendy Red Star reappropriates and reclaims widely-circulated historical portraits that perpetuate false and stereotypical narratives of Native Americans. She highlights the individuality of each sitter and rewrites the narrative centering her cultural identity and historical perspective as an Apsáalooke artist.