59

S.W. Ormsby.

Group of 9 Indian portraits and views, including his famous "Peace."

Montana, 1900 and undated
9 silver prints, some captioned, signed and/or dated in the negative, each just under 8 x 6 inches except as noted, each variously chipped or creased along lower edge, mounted to album leaves or removed from same. With the original album which once housed these photographs, limp pictorial felt-covered paper with embossed monogram "G.F. McK" on rear cover. 


Sanderson Woodruff Ormsby (1858-1929) was a photographer best known for his work among the Assiniboine and Sioux people of Fort Peck Indian Reservation in northeastern Montana. He was best known for one acclaimed photograph. 

On the morning of 10 August 1897, Ormsby got a local Assiniboine named Yellow Boy to pose in the traditional gesture of peace, standing with his weapons on the ground and one hand lifted to his forehead. The shot won first prize in an amateur photography contest held by the Minneapolis Tribune, which pronounced that "we do not remember ever having seen so good an illustration of the Indian as he appears in poetry and romance" (7 November 1897). They later declared it "the finest Indian photograph ever made" (4 September 1898). This opportunity thrust Ormsby briefly on the path to photographic stardom. Variously titled as "Peace," "Chief Yellow Boy Giving the Peace Sign," or "The Real Indian," his masterpiece was published in Cosmopolitan Monthly (January 1898, page 330), "Photograms of '98" (page 41), and several newspapers. A life-sized painting of the photograph on glass by Marion Graves was displayed across the country, including the expositions at Omaha (1898) and Buffalo (1901). 

Included here are 9 original prints by Ormsby, including:

"Walks on the Ground, Assiniboine," signed in negative, mount remnants on verso.

"Two Hawk, Sioux," mounted on an album leaf with an untitled full-length portrait of a young man holding a hatchet mounted on verso, both signed and dated 1900 in negative.

Untitled view of tipis being set up, just under 5 x 8 inches, mount remnants on verso.

Another portrait of "Walk on the Ground, Assiniboine," 1900, signed in negative, with the bottom half inch detached but present, mounted on an album leaf with an untitled portrait of a woman mounted on verso.

Untitled print of Ormsby's masterwork "Peace" or "The Real Indian" (illustrated), mounted on an album leaf with an untitled portrait of a woman on verso.

Untitled view of tipi and 5 occupants (attributed elsewhere to Ormsby), 1-inch closed tear in center of image, mounted on album leaf.

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