R8 • GLOBE ARTS G THE GLOBE AND MAIL • SATURDAY, JULY 19, 2014

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Sheridan Pages (Sundance), Southern Cheyenne, ca. 1885, coloured pencil and graphite on lined paper (ALL PHOTOS BY JOHN BIGELOW TAYLOR/COURTESY TREPANIERBAER GALLERY) issues. It was this sense of mission and, of course, expertise that recently brought Frank to Calgary’s Trépa- nierBaer Gallery as guest speaker at the opening of “Keeping Time: AN ARTFUL JAMES ADAMS Ledger Drawings and the Picto- [email protected] graphic Traditions of Native North Americans ca. 1820-1900.” ACCOUNTING ...... For TrépanierBaer, which typi- t’s very complicated.” Ross cally showcases contemporary ‘IFrank was on the phone the artists such as Evan Penny and other day trying to explain, con- Chris Cran, it’s an unprecedented OF A CULTURE cisely, cogently, the “difficult his- exhibition and sale. The quality of tory” of Plains Indian ledger work available is impressive – drawings and how it couldn’t be there are almost 70 ledger draw- UNDER DURESS anything but complicated when ings by Sioux, Hidatsa, Arapaho the subject is a cultural phenom- and Cheyenne artists, with prices enon informed by unequal parts ranging from $8,500 to $95,000, subjugation, resistance, accultu- plus 20 or so related objects. They ration, appropriation, admira- include a pair of 1880 painted tion, creativity and, yes, beauty. Cheyenne parfleche rawhide An associate professor of ethnic bags, and a painted Crow shield studies at the University of Cali- and cover from 1870, made of buf- fornia San Diego and director of falo hide and deerskin which are the La Jolla-based Plains Indian selling for $175,000. It’s the single Ledger Art Project, Frank is in the largest assembly of ledger art ever forefront of an effort to study, pre- offered for purchase. serve and make available the rich- Most of the works are from the es of the mostly 19th-century art collection of the respected Cana- form. The illustrations were dian tribal-art dealer Donald Ellis, usually done on lined pages and who operates out of New York. in prosaic paper ledger books Ellis is perhaps most famous for used to record, say, a merchant’s shepherding the return of the spending, or the disbursal of Dundas Collection to Canada hardtack from a U.S. Army supply from the U.K. in 2006. (The collec- depot in Wyoming. Other ledgers tion’s 40 artifacts, from B.C.’s might have contained the Tsimshian First Nation, were accounts of an Indian agent on a acquired under murky circum- reservation in Nebraska, or, more stances in 1863 by Anglican prel- sinisterly, the target practice ate R.J. Dundas.) Henderson Ledger Book (page 6), Arapaho, ca. 1880, coloured pencil and watercolour on lined paper scores of U.S. cavalrymen circa While Ellis has had a long-stand- 1874 as they trained to subdue the ing interest in ledger drawings, Cheyenne, Kiowa and the other what really galvanized his First Nations they believed were engagement was seeing the now- impeding the realization of epochal 1996 exhibition “Plains America’s so-called Manifest Des- Indian Drawings 1865-1935: Pages tiny. from a Visual History” at Manhat- PILA was founded by Frank in tan’s Drawing Center. (It came to 1995 to promote the preservation the Art Gallery of Ontario in of, research on and public accessi- Toronto in 1997.) Here was a bility to these palimpsest-like fresh, little-known graphic art tra- metaphors of cultural collision, dition. “Exotic,” to be sure. One largely, in recent years, through that seemed to offer “the other high-resolution digitization of side” of the victory narrative ledger books and pages. Yet as found in the paintings of Frederic this has been occurring, ledger Remington and Charles Russell, drawings not housed in public yet whose best works had the collections or in institutions such colour sense of a Dufy or Vla- as PILA have become hot com- minck, the graphic economy and modities in the art market. Be rhythmic dynamism of a Matisse. they intact ledger books or indi- “It set the New York art world vidual renderings, the most vivid on its ear,” Ellis recalled recently and artful depictions of First of the show, which drew big Nations’ history, life and rituals crowds and rave notices from the Sheridan Pages (page 39), Southern Cheyenne, ca. 1885, coloured pencil and graphite on lined paper can now fetch tens of thousands critics. “So I’ve been sort of quiet- of dollars each, and sometimes ly, actively working with a few more. major collectors, building their Unsurprisingly, there is inten- collections and at the same hold- sifying commercial pressure to ing back drawings with the idea of break up books and sell their con- doing a much larger presentation tents page by page, thereby short- on a commercial level, rather circuiting any possibility of them than a museum level.” being studied and understood as The drawings at TrépanierBaer, whole entities. While no one, not mostly 14 or 22 cm by 29 cm, are even First Nation peoples, argues flavoured with the same bitter- that ledger art can’t be sold – for sweetness tasted (and remarked one thing, they’re not swathed in upon) by visitors to the Drawing the religious significance accord- Center show. It’s true their depic- ed, say, sacred bundles – much tions of courtship rituals, dancing more research needs to be done. and hunting, horseback riding, Faced with the both the anarchy camp life and combat are a con- and logic of the market, Frank tinuation of a rich artist-historian sees one of his primary jobs these tradition among Plains Indian Fort Marion Ledger page, Cheyenne, ca. 1870, coloured pencil and graphite on lined paper days as “sensitizing people” to the tribes. But for all that these works THE GLOBE AND MAIL • SATURDAY, JULY 19, 2014 G GLOBE ARTS • R9

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represent what ledger art histo- hands after High Bull himself was aspect of art-making, from the pa- rian Janet Catherine Berlo calls a killed in another battle with per it’s drawn on to the colours “great flowering of graphic arts on cavalry. From there, Frank specu- used, how things are rendered, the Great Plains of North Ameri- lates, the book “may have been the subject matter. Extraordinary, ca,” they are also telling docu- purchased a few times” before really,” says Yves Trépanier, co- ments of a culture under severe ending up in the possession of the proprietor of the Calgary gallery. duress. wealthy author/suffragist/peace Attribution of ledger art, it ...... activist Grace Hoffman White, should be noted, is fraught and THE ORIGINS who donated it to the original slippery. Frank observes some Museum of the American Indian Fort Marion artists did write their Before the American Civil War in New York in 1925. names on some of their work (1861-1865), the imagistic render- Paradoxes abound in the “great because they were being taught to ing of significant events among flowering” that was ledger art. write and read English. Moreover, Plains Indians largely involved Though it may have been a sym- most of the Fort Marion drawings the application of pigments made bol of an invasive, destructive cul- in the Calgary sale have inscrip- from minerals, plants and soils on ture, “paper, when it came, gave tions in English written by the Vincent Price Ledger Book (page 238), ca. 1875-78, coloured pencil and the stretched hides of buffalo and more opportunity to different fort’s commander, Capt. Richard graphite on lined paper other wild animals. Post-war, this people to draw, rather than just Pratt. tradition was ruptured as whites the tribal few,” a First Nations’ art- However, Candace Greene, an whatever came to them. The in- Sheridan Ledger, for donation to of various stripes – soldiers, set- ist remarked. “So you saw things ethnologist at the Smithsonian terest of the people commission- PILA. tlers, adventurers, prospectors, that weren’t done before, like Institution, noted in a recent ing them was to get the authentic (Sheridan is John L. Sheridan, whisky traders and government courtship rituals … the soap op- e-mail: “We know that many in- Indian production.” brother of Gen. Philip Sheridan, bureaucrats – gazed firmly west- era of the day.” Aboriginal scouts, scriptions [found on ledger art And the results, more often who oversaw the “pacification” of ward and, for the next 35 years, hired by the U.S. cavalry, also generally] are incorrect.” What than not, were pictures that dis- the Plains Indians, declaring, proceeded to attack, sack and made drawings in ledger books, does “count for a ‘signature’ in play what New York Times critic according to some accounts, that debilitate aboriginal societies, sometimes giving or selling their ledger art,” says Frank, “is a sys- Holland Cotter, in his 1996 review “the only good Indians I saw were eviscerate buffalo herds, swarm narratives of present and past his- tem of ‘name glyphs’ that hover of the Drawing Center show, dead” – a remark subsequently sacred sites, violate treaties and tory to their white employers, above the heads of figures” in the described as “a shrewd, bitter, “translated” into white popular drive formerly nomadic bands who, in turn, would bring them drawings. But not all ledger draw- dogged impulse to perpetuate the culture as “the only good Indian onto confined reservations. Faced home as souvenirs of their partic- ings have them (most, in fact, do realities of Indian life, both as is a dead Indian.” John, a lawyer with this aggression and displace- ipation in the Indian wars. not); and sometimes a glyph rep- longed-for past and often grim and land agent, acquired ledger ment, Plains Indian artist-histo- One of the most illustrious prof- resents both the figure in the but resilient present.” art during visits to forts in Okla- rians switched to a new, usions of ledger art didn’t even drawing and the artist, but other ...... homa in the late 1870s. Another non-native, decidedly more con- occur on the Plains, but in a mili- times not. COMMERCE VS. PRESERVATION batch of his drawings, 40 in total, venient medium, the ledger book, tary prison on the Atlantic coast Connoisseurship of a kind is a torn from an unknown ledger variously bought, received as a of Florida. Following the conclu- factor, too: For example, Univer- Today, the big issue about ledger book, are called the Sheridan gift, stolen or scavenged from the sion of the Red River War of 1874- sity of New Mexico historian drawings has less to do with how Pages; 26 are for sale at Trépanier- whites they were encountering. 75, close to 75 Plains Indian war- Joyce Szabo, author of Howling much coercion was involved in Baer. PILA has obtained permis- A salient example of the phe- riors and chiefs, mostly Cheyenne Wolf and the History of Ledger Art their creation or what compensa- sion to digitally archive the nomenon would be the so-called and Kiowa, were sent by rail to (1994), thinks a case can be made tion their creators received, and Sheridan Pages.) High Bull roster book of drawings, Fort Marion, near St. Augustine, that the Fort Marion drawings in more with maintaining, as Ellis Given the fraught history of led- now in the National Museum of after being deemed “murderers” Calgary are from the hand of an- says, “the integrity of the full led- ger drawings, you might think the the American Indian in Washing- by military court. Of these, 20 or other distinguished Cheyenne ger book.” genre would be anathema to con- ton, D.C. Originally the property so were given unlined paper, warrior, Chief Killer, whereas Tré- Almost from their initial trans- temporary aboriginals. But in fact of a sergeant in the U.S. 7th Caval- crayons, pencils, ink and paint, panier and Ellis, among others, fer to private hands from aborig- artists, men and women such as ry, the book listed the best mark- and for the next three years they hold for Howling Wolf. inal, these books have, in many Michael Horse, Terrance Guard- smen in his company, among churned out a voluminous num- It’s been argued that works such instances, been broken up and ipee and Sheridan MacKnight, other records. In late June of 1876, ber of drawings, many of them as the Fort Marion drawings are their individual pages scattered. continue the tradition by drawing the sergeant was one of hundreds bought by tourists to the region. “products” of a people in exile One example involves the late and painting not just in old ledger who lost their lives at the famous TrépanierBaer is selling at least and therefore are “tainted” and movie star Vincent Price, who in books but on sheet music, maps, Battle of the Little Bighorn in eight drawings with a Fort Marion less “authentic” than the by- the 1950s acquired a ledger book cheques, government documents, what is now southeastern Mon- connection, including six espe- natives/for-natives works done with more than 100 Cheyenne boarding-school records and tana. The roster book was taken cially striking works attributed to prior to incarceration or confine- and Arapaho drawings purport- hymnals. from the sergeant’s body by the the Cheyenne warrior Howling ment on reservations. Despite edly done in the late 1870s. Price Horse, a Yaqui/Mescalero Northern Cheyenne warrior High Wolf (1849-1927), one of the most this reality, Joyce Szabo writes in apparently kept the book intact Apache/Zuni who also acts in Bull who, with other Cheyenne, proficient and sought-after ledger Imprisoned Art, Complex Patronage for decades – but then, sometime film and TV and collects ledger drew over the records with gra- artists. (2011),“nothing suggests that any in the 1980s as the commercial art, showed up at the opening of phite and crayons. Five months “He clearly loved what he did. of the men was forced to draw … value of single drawings rose, he Keeping Time last month and was later, the book was back in white There’s such attention to every The men known to have made allowed the book to be unbound “very impressed” by what he saw. these images had to want to do and individual pages sold. Five “Very seldom you actually see so.” illustrations (including one dou- that many really good pieces of Admittedly, Fort Marion’s ove- ble-sided drawing) from Vincent ledger art,” he said. Speaking the rarching agenda was one of accul- Price Ledger Book, as it’s called, other day from his home near San turation: Capt. Pratt liked to say are in the TrépanierBaer exhibi- Francisco, Horse likened ledger his job was to “kill the Indian, tion/sale. Fortunately, four have art to the blues, another art form save the man,” and to that end been scanned for PILA’s digital born of suffering and repression Howling Wolf and his fellow archives, part of a PILA initiative yet attesting to survival, preserva- inmates had their hair shorn and calling on all the owners of origi- tion, resistance. “Imagine you’re a traditional garb removed. Yet at nal Price pages to submit an free person, you have no boun- the same time, according to Sza- image or images to permit the daries, only where the wind takes bo, “an atmosphere existed that book’s reconstruction online. you and the buffalo. And all of a encouraged the creation of draw- Ellis, meanwhile, has been sudden, in just a few years, some- ings and inspired experimenta- working on a project to “rebuild” body draws a little square and tion.” some of the actual ledger books says to you, ‘You can’t go out of Adds Frank: “In every case that dismantled during the 1980s and there’ … When people see ledger we know of of what might be 1990s. And, to prevent any further art sometime, even people who called ‘patronage’ of ledger art, it dismemberment, the dealer and a aren’t collectors of native art, they was unlike, for example, trading “very serious major Canadian cli- know something’s going on here. posts in the Navajo territories ent,” unnamed, is letting it be Yeah, it’s a lot like the blues.” when trading-post folks would known they’re prepared “to pay a ...... say, ‘Do this design’ … This didn’t premium for full books.” It’s an Keeping Time: Ledger Drawings and happen in ledger art. Even when ethos shared by a U.S. private the Pictographic Traditions of prisoners were in jail or commis- foundation, also unnamed, which Native North American ca. 1820- Detail of Chief Killer among the turkeys on the Canadian River, c. 1875-80, sioned to fill out a sketch-book recently acquired a complete 1900 continues at TrépanierBaer graphite, crayon, coloured pencil on paper album, they were allowed to do book of 140 drawings called the Gallery in Calgary through Aug. 16.