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Charles Bird King was an American portrait artist well-known for his paintings of Indigenous leaders. At age fi fteen, he studied portrait painting under Edward Savage in New York. At 20, King studied under Benjamin West at the Royal Academy in London. He returned to the U.S. due to the War of 1812, and after living and working in several major American cities, he settled in Washington, D.C.
Thomas McKenney, the United States superintendent of Indian Trade in Georgetown, commissioned King to start a collection of portraits of signifi cant Indigenous leaders who visited Washington. Between 1822 and 1842, King worked on his "Indian" portrait gallery, which served as a review of Indigenous and state relations during the fi rst half of the 19th century.
Within the tradition of preserving the "way of life" of Indigenous Peoples before their environment and reality became "too altered" by settler colonialism, King produced 143 portraits. These portraits were later reproduced as hand-coloured lithographs in Thomas McKenney and James Hall's three-volume publication, History of the Indian Tribes of North America, published in 1837.
Indigenous leaders travelled to Washington to negotiate treaties and advocate for their rights to hold onto their homelands. The representation of Indigenous Peoples through the guise of cultural "erasure" or "disappearance" is a dissembling narrative that has been repeated throughout history. King's portraits also reveal a story of displacement, extraction, and, eventually, forced assimilation policies.
*The term "Indian" is no longer generally used or well-liked in everyday dialogue.
Curated by Emma Hassencahl-Perley and organized by the Beaverbrook Art Gallery.
