Charles Bird King
Encyclopedia
Charles Bird King is a United States
artist who is best known for his portraiture. In particular, the artist is notable for the portraits he painted of Native American
delegates coming to Washington D.C., which were commissioned by government's Bureau of Indian Affairs
.
as the only child of Deborah Bird and American Revolutionary veteran Captain Zebulon King. The family traveled west, but when King was four years old, his father was killed and scalped by Native Americans near Marietta, Ohio. His mother took her son to return to Newport, where they lived with her mother.
When King was fifteen, he went to New York to study under the portrait painter Edward Savage
. At age twenty he moved to London to study under the famous painter Benjamin West
at the esteemed Royal Academy
. King returned to the U.S. due to the War of 1812 after a seven-year stay in London, and spent time working in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Richmond.
He eventually settled in Washington, due to the economic appeal of the burgeoning city. In the nation’s new capital, the artist earned a solid reputation as a portraitist among politicians, and earned enough to maintain his own studio and gallery. King’s economic success in the art world, particularly in the field of portraiture, can be attributed to his ability to socialize with the wealthy celebrities, and relate to the well-educated politicians of the time: "His industry and simple habits enabled him to acquire a handsome competence, and his amiable and exemplary character won him many friends". These patrons included John Quincy Adams
, John C. Calhoun
, Henry Clay
, James Monroe
, and Daniel Webster
. King’s popularity and steady stream of work left him with little reason or need to leave Washington. Despite his wealth and societal standing, the artist never married, and lived in Washington until his death on March 18, 1862.
King took more than stylistic cues from these examples, as he also employed some of the techniques which he saw. As Nicholas Clark wrote in 1982, King “sometimes relied upon Dutch prints for formal solutions" , as the prints provided a source of valued composition. As King’s formal education included seeing revered art from the Netherlands and surrounding regions, and many of his paintings include features that indicate influence of Dutch art, the artist may be seen to have derived his favor for genre and still life paintings from this style. As noted above, King incorporated the techniques of Dutch painting into his portraits, though he recognized that the United States was not yet as familiar the references to the style as it would be in the sphere of “post-Civil War materialism… ".
Beyond his specific connection to Dutch painting, King is known to have been especially committed to staying within the confines of the traditional style of painting which he learned in his youth: “it is apparent that the artist would adapt, time and again, traditional European mannerisms to his new and native subject matter”.
While King completed a number of paintings that invoked Dutch painting technique, he is better known as an important figure in the 19th-century United States art world for his numerous portraits of Native Americans, commissioned by the federal government. He was also commissioned by the government for portraits of celebrated war heroes, and privately by the political elite, all to portray important men before the time of photography. Despite his popularity at the time, King is often overlooked in the broad scope of art history when placed amidst the talent of his contemporaries. His relative obscurity may be due in part to his lack of innovation in his work. It is also due to the loss of most of his numerous Indian portraits to a fire in the Smithsonian; his work simply disappeared, so he was overlooked in succeeding generations.
. King’s work makes up a bulk of the Indian portrait collection, with more than 143 paintings done from 1822 to 1842 .
Thomas McKenney, who served as the United States superintendent of Indian trade in Georgetown and later as the head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs
, initiated the government's commissioning of the portraits. Like many others, at the time he believed that the indigenous people were nearing extinction, and he was seeking ways to preserve their history and culture. He first tried to collect artifacts from various tribes, then thought of having portraits painted for the government. About this time, he met King, whose talent he appreciated. “The arrival of Charles Bird King on the Washington scene inspired the imaginative McKenney to add portraits to his archives.” King painted the subjects in his own studio, as McKenney easily obtained the consent for the portraits from Native American leaders coming to Washington to do business with the US through his new department. King’s 20-year role in painting works for the collection was profitable for the artist. He charged at least $20 for a bust, and $27 for a full-figure portrait, allowing him to collect an estimated $3,500 from the government .
The portraits gained widespread publicity beyond Washington during this period as McKenney broadened his project by publishing a book on Native Americans. In 1829 he began what would become many years' worth of work on the three-volume work, History of the Indian Tribes of North America. The project featured the many portraits of Native Americans, mostly King’s, in lithograph form, accompanied by an essay by the author James Hall
.
After the administration changed and McKenney left the BIA, the agency donated the Native American portrait collection to the National Institute, but shoddy care and displays kept it from the public eye . When the National Institute deteriorated, it gave its work in 1858 to the Smithsonian Institution
. King's portraits were displayed among similar paintings by the New York artist John Mix Stanley
, in a gallery containing a total of 291 paintings of Native American portraits and scenes. On January 24, 1865 a fire destroyed the paintings in this gallery, though a few of King’s were saved before the flames spread. Representations of many of the lost paintings have been found in McKenney’s lithograph collection that supported the book.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
artist who is best known for his portraiture. In particular, the artist is notable for the portraits he painted of Native American
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
delegates coming to Washington D.C., which were commissioned by government's Bureau of Indian Affairs
Bureau of Indian Affairs
The Bureau of Indian Affairs is an agency of the federal government of the United States within the US Department of the Interior. It is responsible for the administration and management of of land held in trust by the United States for Native Americans in the United States, Native American...
.
Biography
Charles Bird King was born in Newport, Rhode IslandNewport, Rhode Island
Newport is a city on Aquidneck Island in Newport County, Rhode Island, United States, about south of Providence. Known as a New England summer resort and for the famous Newport Mansions, it is the home of Salve Regina University and Naval Station Newport which houses the United States Naval War...
as the only child of Deborah Bird and American Revolutionary veteran Captain Zebulon King. The family traveled west, but when King was four years old, his father was killed and scalped by Native Americans near Marietta, Ohio. His mother took her son to return to Newport, where they lived with her mother.
When King was fifteen, he went to New York to study under the portrait painter Edward Savage
Edward Savage (artist)
Edward Savage was an American portrait painter and engraver. He was born in Princeton, Mass., and at first worked as a goldsmith, also practicing engraving. Although seemingly untrained in painting, he came into prominence in 1790 through his portrait of George Washington, intended as a gift to...
. At age twenty he moved to London to study under the famous painter Benjamin West
Benjamin West
Benjamin West, RA was an Anglo-American painter of historical scenes around and after the time of the American War of Independence...
at the esteemed Royal Academy
Royal Academy
The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...
. King returned to the U.S. due to the War of 1812 after a seven-year stay in London, and spent time working in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Richmond.
He eventually settled in Washington, due to the economic appeal of the burgeoning city. In the nation’s new capital, the artist earned a solid reputation as a portraitist among politicians, and earned enough to maintain his own studio and gallery. King’s economic success in the art world, particularly in the field of portraiture, can be attributed to his ability to socialize with the wealthy celebrities, and relate to the well-educated politicians of the time: "His industry and simple habits enabled him to acquire a handsome competence, and his amiable and exemplary character won him many friends". These patrons included John Quincy Adams
John Quincy Adams
John Quincy Adams was the sixth President of the United States . He served as an American diplomat, Senator, and Congressional representative. He was a member of the Federalist, Democratic-Republican, National Republican, and later Anti-Masonic and Whig parties. Adams was the son of former...
, John C. Calhoun
John C. Calhoun
John Caldwell Calhoun was a leading politician and political theorist from South Carolina during the first half of the 19th century. Calhoun eloquently spoke out on every issue of his day, but often changed positions. Calhoun began his political career as a nationalist, modernizer, and proponent...
, Henry Clay
Henry Clay
Henry Clay, Sr. , was a lawyer, politician and skilled orator who represented Kentucky separately in both the Senate and in the House of Representatives...
, James Monroe
James Monroe
James Monroe was the fifth President of the United States . Monroe was the last president who was a Founding Father of the United States, and the last president from the Virginia dynasty and the Republican Generation...
, and Daniel Webster
Daniel Webster
Daniel Webster was a leading American statesman and senator from Massachusetts during the period leading up to the Civil War. He first rose to regional prominence through his defense of New England shipping interests...
. King’s popularity and steady stream of work left him with little reason or need to leave Washington. Despite his wealth and societal standing, the artist never married, and lived in Washington until his death on March 18, 1862.
Styles and influences
Though King’s legacy lies in his portraiture, throughout his career he also demonstrated a great technical skill in still life, genre, and literary paintings. Scholars have thought he would have preferred to focus on these styles throughout his career, but he needed to earn a living, and the only money to be made within the art market of the United States in the early part of the 19th century was in painting portraits. His inclination towards genre and still life paintings can be traced back to his seven-year stay in London. The 16th and 17th-century style attributed to masters in Northern Europe, especially that of the Dutch and Flemish, was quite popular in the upper echelons of the art culture. While attending the Royal Academy, King was swayed towards the Dutch styles by the demand such works commanded, and also was able to see the works an dlearn from them. It is likely that through his schooling, he was able to study the British royal collection, as “Prince of Wales, and Regent, George IV collected Dutch art voraciously…” and the prints were the favored style at the time by other members of European royalty.King took more than stylistic cues from these examples, as he also employed some of the techniques which he saw. As Nicholas Clark wrote in 1982, King “sometimes relied upon Dutch prints for formal solutions" , as the prints provided a source of valued composition. As King’s formal education included seeing revered art from the Netherlands and surrounding regions, and many of his paintings include features that indicate influence of Dutch art, the artist may be seen to have derived his favor for genre and still life paintings from this style. As noted above, King incorporated the techniques of Dutch painting into his portraits, though he recognized that the United States was not yet as familiar the references to the style as it would be in the sphere of “post-Civil War materialism… ".
While King completed a number of paintings that invoked Dutch painting technique, he is better known as an important figure in the 19th-century United States art world for his numerous portraits of Native Americans, commissioned by the federal government. He was also commissioned by the government for portraits of celebrated war heroes, and privately by the political elite, all to portray important men before the time of photography. Despite his popularity at the time, King is often overlooked in the broad scope of art history when placed amidst the talent of his contemporaries. His relative obscurity may be due in part to his lack of innovation in his work. It is also due to the loss of most of his numerous Indian portraits to a fire in the Smithsonian; his work simply disappeared, so he was overlooked in succeeding generations.
Native American portraits
The Smithsonian art historian Herman J. Viola notes in the preface to The Indian Legacy of Charles Bird King that he compiled the book was to acknowledge the importance of King, as well as his Native American subjects, as part of the creation of a federal collection of Indian portraits. The government, private collectors, and museums hold portraits by a number of talented United States’ painters, including James Otto Lewis and George CookeGeorge Cooke (painter)
George Cooke was an itinerant United States painter who specialized in portrait and landscape paintings and was one of the South's best known painters of the mid nineteenth century...
. King’s work makes up a bulk of the Indian portrait collection, with more than 143 paintings done from 1822 to 1842 .
Thomas McKenney, who served as the United States superintendent of Indian trade in Georgetown and later as the head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs
Bureau of Indian Affairs
The Bureau of Indian Affairs is an agency of the federal government of the United States within the US Department of the Interior. It is responsible for the administration and management of of land held in trust by the United States for Native Americans in the United States, Native American...
, initiated the government's commissioning of the portraits. Like many others, at the time he believed that the indigenous people were nearing extinction, and he was seeking ways to preserve their history and culture. He first tried to collect artifacts from various tribes, then thought of having portraits painted for the government. About this time, he met King, whose talent he appreciated. “The arrival of Charles Bird King on the Washington scene inspired the imaginative McKenney to add portraits to his archives.” King painted the subjects in his own studio, as McKenney easily obtained the consent for the portraits from Native American leaders coming to Washington to do business with the US through his new department. King’s 20-year role in painting works for the collection was profitable for the artist. He charged at least $20 for a bust, and $27 for a full-figure portrait, allowing him to collect an estimated $3,500 from the government .
The portraits gained widespread publicity beyond Washington during this period as McKenney broadened his project by publishing a book on Native Americans. In 1829 he began what would become many years' worth of work on the three-volume work, History of the Indian Tribes of North America. The project featured the many portraits of Native Americans, mostly King’s, in lithograph form, accompanied by an essay by the author James Hall
James Hall
-Actors, Entertainment, Broadcasting:* James Hall , American actor* Jamie Hall , Canadian TV producer-Authors:* James Hall , American academic* James Baker Hall , American author...
.
After the administration changed and McKenney left the BIA, the agency donated the Native American portrait collection to the National Institute, but shoddy care and displays kept it from the public eye . When the National Institute deteriorated, it gave its work in 1858 to the Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
. King's portraits were displayed among similar paintings by the New York artist John Mix Stanley
John Mix Stanley
John Mix Stanley was an artist-explorer, an American painter of landscapes, and Native American portraits and tribal life. Born in the Finger Lakes region of New York, he started painting signs and portraits as a young man, but in 1842 traveled to the American West to paint Native American life...
, in a gallery containing a total of 291 paintings of Native American portraits and scenes. On January 24, 1865 a fire destroyed the paintings in this gallery, though a few of King’s were saved before the flames spread. Representations of many of the lost paintings have been found in McKenney’s lithograph collection that supported the book.
Lithographs of Native Americans
Lithographs from Thomas L. McKenney & James Hall. History of the Indian Tribes of North America. Philadelphia: F.W. Greenough, 1838–1844Exhibitions
- The Annual Exhibition Record of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, August 1813
- Louisville Museum, Louisville, Kentucky, May 1834
- Philadelphia Artists, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, April 8, 1839
- Artists' Fund Society, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, ca. 1845
- The McKenney & Hall Lithographs of Charles Bird King’s Portraits of American Indians, Smithsonian Institution Building, 1990–1996
Sampling of works
- William Pinkey (1815) Maryland Historical Society
- General John Stricker (1816) Maryland Historical Society
- The Poor Artist’s Cupboard (c. 1815) Corcoran Gallery of Art
- Wicked ChiefWicked ChiefSharitahrish, also known as The Wicked Chief, was principal chief or head man of the Grand Pawnees. He was succeeded by his brother Ishcatape, a name given him by the Omahas, or Pawnee Mah as. Sharitarish died when he was just 30 years old.-References:...
(c.1822) White House Library - Vanity Of An Artist’s Dream (1830) Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University
- Fruit Piece with Pineapples (1840) John S. H. Russell, Newport, Rhode Island
- Young Omaha, War Eagle, Little Missouri, and Pawness (c. 1821) National Collection of Fine Arts, Smithsonian Institution
- Hoowaunneka [Little Elk], Winnebago, (1828), Peabody Museum, Harvard University.
- Wajechai [Crouching Eagle], (1824), Gulf States Paper Corporation, Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
- Pushmataha, The Sapling is Ready for Him, (1824), Gulf States Paper Corporation Collection, Tuscalossa, Alabama.
- Joseph Porus [Polis], Penobscot, (1842), Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art, Tulsa, Oklahoma.
See also
- Elbridge Ayer BurbankElbridge Ayer BurbankElbridge Ayer Burbank was an American artist who sketched and painted more than 1200 portraits of Native Americans from 125 tribes. He studied art in Chicago and in his 30s traveled to Munich, Germany for additional studies with notable German artists...
- George CatlinGeorge CatlinGeorge Catlin was an American painter, author and traveler who specialized in portraits of Native Americans in the Old West.-Early years:...
- Seth and Mary EastmanSeth and Mary EastmanSeth Eastman and his second wife Mary Henderson Eastman were instrumental in recording Native American life. Eastman was an artist and West Point graduate who served in the US Army, first as a mapmaker and illustrator. He had two tours at Fort Snelling, Minnesota Territory; during the second,...
- Paul KanePaul KanePaul Kane was an Irish-born Canadian painter, famous for his paintings of First Nations peoples in the Canadian West and other Native Americans in the Oregon Country....
- W. Langdon KihnW. Langdon KihnWilfred Langdon Kihn was a portrait painter and illustrator specializing in portraits of American Indians.He was born in Brooklyn, New York, son of Alfred Charles Kihn and Carrie Lowe Kihn...
- Joseph Henry SharpJoseph Henry SharpJoseph Henry Sharp was an American painter and a founding member of the Taos Society of Artists, of which he is considered the "Spiritual Father". Sharp was one of the earliest European-American artists to visit Taos, New Mexico, which he saw in 1893 with John Hauser when he visited in 1893...
- John Mix StanleyJohn Mix StanleyJohn Mix Stanley was an artist-explorer, an American painter of landscapes, and Native American portraits and tribal life. Born in the Finger Lakes region of New York, he started painting signs and portraits as a young man, but in 1842 traveled to the American West to paint Native American life...