Charles Deas (1818–1867) (after)
Long Jakes, "The Rocky Mountain Man"
Oil on canvas
height: 30 in, 76.2000 cm; image width: 25 in, 63.5000 cm
Denver Art Museum
Charles Deas (December 22, 1818 – March 23, 1867) was an American painter noted for his oil paintings of Native Americans and fur trappers of the mid-19th century.
Charles Deas
Turkey Shooting, c. 1838
Oil on canvas
Museum Syndicate
Between 1838 and 1840, Deas's humorous genre pictures and portraits elicited critical praise. His painting, "Turkey Shooting" (c. 1838), illustrates an episode in James Fenimore Cooper's novel "The Pioneers,"
Charles Deas was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He attempted, and failed, to obtain an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. As a young man, he studied under John Sanderson in Philadelphia, and subsequently embarked upon a career as a painter. The National Academy of Design in New York soon recognized his work, electing him as an associate member in 1839.
Deas, Charles (1818-67) / American
Indian Warrior on the Edge of a Precipice, c. 1847
Oil on canvas
92.8x67 cms
Museum of the American West
Charles Deas
A Group of Sioux, c. 1845
Oil on canvas
14 1/8 x 16 1/2 in.
Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas
The Sioux are groups of Native American tribes and First Nations peoples in North America. The term "Sioux" is an exonym created from a French transcription of the Ojibwe term "Nadouessioux", and can refer to any ethnic group within the Great Sioux Nation or to any of the nation's many language dialects.
Before the 17th century, the Santee Dakota (Isáŋyathi lived around Lake Superior with territories in present-day northern Minnesota and Wisconsin. They gathered wild rice, hunted woodland animals and used canoes to fish.
The Lakota, also called Teton, are the westernmost Sioux, known for their hunting and warrior culture. With the arrival of the horse in the 1700s, the Lakota would become the most powerful tribe on the Plains by the 1850s. They fought the United States Army in the Sioux Wars including defeating the 7th Cavalry Regiment at the Battle of Little Big Horn. The armed conflicts with the U.S. ended with the Wounded Knee Massacre. More on the Sioux
Charles Deas (1818-1867)
Figure Group of Sioux, c. 1845
Oil on paper laid down on board
7 1⁄4 x 6 in. (18.4 x 15.2 cm.)
Private collection
Charles Deas (1818–1867)
Sioux Playing Ball, c. 1843
Oil on canvas
Height: 73.6 cm (29 in); Width: 93.9 cm (37 in)
Gilcrease Museum
Charles Deas
Pawnees on the Trail Of an Enemy, c. 1840
Oil on canvas
Height: 17 3/4in. (45.1cm), Width: 14 5/8in. (37.1cm)
Gilcrease Museum
The Pawnee are a Central Plains Indian tribe that historically lived in Nebraska and northern Kansas but today are based in Oklahoma. Historically, they lived in villages of earth lodges near the Loup, Republican, and South Platte rivers.
In the early 18th century, the Pawnee numbered more than 60,000 people. However, several tribes from the Great Lakes began moving onto the Great Plains and encroaching on Pawnee territory, including the Dakota, Lakota, and Cheyenne. The Arapaho also moved into Pawnee territory. The Pawnee were occasionally at war with the Comanche and Kiowa further south.
They had suffered many losses due to Eurasian infectious diseases brought by the expanding Europeans and European-Americans. By 1860, the Pawnee population was reduced to just 4,000. It further decreased, because of disease, crop failure, warfare, and government rations policy, to approximately 2,400 by 1873, after which time the Pawnee were forced to move to Indian Territory, which later became Oklahoma. Many Pawnee warriors enlisted to serve as Indian scouts in the US Army to track and fight their old enemies, the Sioux and Cheyenne on the Great Plains. More on the Pawnee
Charles Deas
Winnebago Indians playing checkers, c. 1842
Oil on canvas
Private Collection
The Ho-Chunk, also known as Hoocągra or Winnebago, are a Siouan-speaking Native American people whose historic territory includes parts of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and Illinois. Today, Ho-Chunk people are enrolled in two federally recognized tribes, the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin and the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska.
The Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska have an Indian reservation in Nebraska. While related, the two tribes are distinct federally recognized sovereign nations and peoples, each having its own constitutionally formed government.
The Ho-Chunk suffered severe population loss in the 17th century to a low of perhaps 500 individuals. This has been attributed to casualties of a lake storm, epidemics of infectious disease, and competition for resources from migrating Algonquian tribes. By the early 1800s, their population had increased to 2,900 but they suffered further losses in the smallpox epidemic of 1836. In 1990 they numbered 7,000; current estimates of total population of the two tribes are 12,000. More on Winnebago Indians
Charles Deas
Winnebago (Wa-kon-cha-hi-re-ga) in a Bark Lodge, c. 1842
Oil on canvas laid down on masonite
36 inches high by 30 inches wide
St Louis Mercantile Library at the University of Missouri
The present sketch relates to Charles Deas' oil Indian Group of 1845 in the collection of the Amon Carter Museum of Art, Fort Worth, Texas. Indian Group likely depicts a group of Sioux, whom the artist possibly encountered during his experience on Clifton Wharton's expedition of 1844 to visit the Pawnee villages of Nebraska.
Charles Deas (1818–1867) (after)
The Trapper
Oil on canvas
H 54 x W 44 cm
American Museum & Gardens
Charles Deas (1818–1867)
The Trapper and his Family
Watercolor on paper
Height: 34 cm (13.3 in); Width: 49.5 cm (19.4 in)
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Charles Deas
The Voyageurs, c. 1849
Oil on canvas
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
The voyageurs were 18th and 19th century French Canadians who engaged in the transporting of furs via canoe during the peak of the North American fur trade. The emblematic meaning of the term applies to places (New France, including the Pays d'en Haut and the Pays des Illinois) and times where transportation of materials was mainly over long distances. The voyageurs were regarded as legendary.[1] They were heroes celebrated in folklore and music. For reasons of promised celebrity status and wealth, this position was coveted. More on The Voyageurs
By 1840, he had decided to emulate one of his influences, George Catlin, and travel westward in the United States. It was during travels through the Wisconsin Territory that he became a noted painter of trappers and American Indians. By 1841, Deas decided to establish his base in St. Louis, Missouri. During this time, Deas would typically spend "a few months among the Indian tribes, familiarizing himself with their manners and customs."
Charles Deas
River Man, c. 1847
Oil on paper
Height: 9 3/4in. (24.8cm), Width: 14 3/4in. (37.5cm)
Gilcrease Museum
Charles Deas (1818–1867)
Portrait of a Woman, c. 1840
Oil on paperboard attached to wood panel
12 1/8 inches by 9 3/4 inches
St. Louis Mercantile Library Art Museum
Deas' "Portrait of a Woman" (1840) exemplifies his restraint in depicting consequential members of the provincial society while including small details to symbolize his subjects' personal habits. Despite this, Deas's portraits are bland descendants of the primitive likenesses done by Colonial and Federal-era limners. More on Portrait of a Woman
Charles Deas, American, 1818-1867
The Rocky Mountain Man, c. 1844
Oil on canvas
height: 30 in, 76.2000 cm; width: 25 in, 63.5000 cm
Denver Art Museum
Charles Deas (1818–1867)
The Death Struggle, c. 1845
Oil on canvas
Height: 80.2 cm (31.5 in); Width: 66.8 cm (26.2 in)
Shelburne Museum
Charles Deas
Prairie Fire, c. 1847
Oil on canvas
Museum Syndicate
The artist's works are described as expressing "psychological tension, perceived danger, alarm, and flight," epitomized by his painting Death Struggle (See above) which depicts an Indian and trapper locked in combat while falling to their deaths from a cliff.
Charles Deas
The Devil and Tom Walker, c. 1843
Oil on canvas
Museum Syndicate
"The Devil and Tom Walker" is a short story by Washington Irving that first appeared in his 1824 collection Tales of a Traveller, in "The Money-Diggers" part of volume II. The story is very similar to the German legend of Faust.
Stephen Vincent Benét drew much of his inspiration for "The Devil and Daniel Webster" from this tale... More on The Devil and Tom Walker
Deas was most famous while he was still alive. One critic, in 1947, stated that the painter was considered to have "enjoyed more of a reputation during his own lifetime" than currently. Between 1841 and 1848, Deas' regularly exhibited his works in St. Louis at the "Mechanics Fairs." He also shipped many of his works, for sale, to the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts as well as to New York's American Art Union. Deas returned to New York in 1848 and expressed a desire to open a gallery of Indian art. Before he could do this he was declared legally insane.
Charles Deas
Dragoons Crossing River, c. 1844
Oil on canvas
Museum Syndicate
Dragoons were originally a class of mounted infantry, who used horses for mobility, but dismounted to fight on foot. From the early 17th century onward, dragoons were increasingly also employed as conventional cavalry and trained for combat with swords and firearms from horseback. While their use goes back to the late 16th century, dragoon regiments were established in most European armies during the 17th and early 18th centuries; they provided greater mobility than regular infantry but were far less expensive than cavalry.
The name reputedly derives from a type of firearm, called a dragon, which was a handgun version of a blunderbuss, carried by dragoons of the French Army.
The title has been retained in modern times by a number of armoured or ceremonial mounted regiments. More on Dragoons
Charles Deas (1818-1867)
The Trooper, c. 1840
Oil on canvas
12 x 14 in. (30.5 x 35.6 cm.)
Private collection
This action-packed work depicts two soldiers in mortal combat. The soldier in red, bleeding from the forehead, fires on the one in blue who reels back from the impact. The terrified expressions of the horses and the turbulent sky underscore the frenzied tone. The brilliant yellows and reds of the men’s uniforms pop in an otherwise grey and brown composition. The background of the work is equally as chaotic with a pack of rider-less galloping horses in the left and crows descending over the smoke filled remnants of the battle in the right. The small format of The Trooper belies the explosive action of the composition. Art historian Carol Clark notes of The Trooper, “Deas’ painting of military action, fantastically realized, is thrillingly escapist. It points to a traditional test of manhood—survival in military combat—that Deas did not take. But it also directs us to the place where he and many of his contemporaries tested their skills—the West. More on The Trooper
On May 23, 1848, Deas was committed to New York's Bloomingdale Asylum. He was institutionalized for the rest of his life. During this period, his paintings were described as being particularly intense. "One of his wild pictures, representing a black sea, over which a figure hung, suspended from a ring, while from the waves a monster was springing, was so horrible, that a sensitive artist fainted at the sight." Deas died of "apoplexy" (possible stroke) in Bloomingdale Asylum on March 23, 1867.
Deas' maternal grandfather was the 18th century American politician Ralph Izard of South Carolina. More on Charles Deas
Deas' maternal grandfather was the 18th century American politician Ralph Izard of South Carolina. More on Charles Deas
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