Sioux Reconnoitering

In June 1837, Alfred Jacob Miller traveled West for the annual fur-trader's rendezvous, departing St. Louis for the Green River in present day Wyoming. During his trip, Miller created over 150 preliminary sketches and watercolors, which he later used to render finished compositions in both watercolor and oil. The subjects of these works were most frequently genre scenes of life in the American West, including depictions of both fur trappers and Native Americans, at leisure and engaged in action, such as in Sioux Reconnoitering.

With its precise detail and vibrant color, Sioux Reconnoitering epitomizes Millers unparalleled ability to capture the spirit of a fleeting American West. “Miller’s paintings were dreamy, timeless, and quintessentially Romantic.” (F. Flavin, “The Adventurer – Artists of the Nineteenth Century and the Image of the American Indian,” Indian Magazine of History, 2002, p. 1) As in the present work, Miller went beyond the documentary focus of peers like George Catlin and Karl Bodmer in his emphasis on narrative and an admiring romanticisation of his subject, resulting in some of the earliest truly artistic renditions of the American West.

A related watercolor is in the collection of the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland.