The Indian Gallery of Henry Inman

is organized by the High Museum of Art, Atlanta

with the support of Ann and Tom Cousins

September 1, 2010 - January 21, 2011

During the 1820's, Eastern Native American tribes increasingly faced a government policy of removal to the West.  In order to capture their vanishing way of life, Thomas L. McKenney, head of the newly-formed Bureau of Indian Affairs, commissioned from the artist Charles Bird King a series of more than one-hundred portraits of Native American leaders for the War Department's museum.  The sitters had come to Washington, D.C. to negotiate treaties and resettlement terms with the federal government.  Intent on reaching a wider audience, McKenney published the portraits a decade later in the three-volume portfolio The Indian Tribes of North America.  To produce the striking color lithographs for this publication, McKenney hired the Philadelphia portraitist, Henry Inman to copy the paintings in the War Department's "Indian Gallery".  This exhibition will feature over a dozen of Inman's exceptional portraits, particularly those of tribal leaders from the Southeastern region of the United States, along with prints from the popular portfolio.  Works are drawn from the High Museum's holdings as well as from regional collections.