Joseph Henry Sharp

Only a few artists come to mind when one attempts to classify accurate recorders of Montana history and its Native Americans. Charles M. Russell more than adequately captured the more northwestern tribes of the Blackfeet, Nez Perce, Blood, and their relatives. Henry Farny and Frederic Remington both did a magnificent job on a similar range of tribes as well. However, none did so unique an artistic rendering of the Plains Indian tribes as did Joseph Henry Sharp. Between 1897 and his death in 1953, he portrayed the Crow, Cheyenne, Sioux, Shoshone, Arapaho, and Blackfeet as well as any, and better than almost any other artist of this period. His records of the Plains Indian genre stir emotions not usually experienced in nonnative interpretations. It is difficult to view a work by this artist and not encounter some stirring sensation on an emotion yet discovered.

Sharp was an art teacher for the first 40 years of his life in Cincinnati Art Institute until 1902, at which time, he also was spending time in Montana in the late 90's, where he camped near the battlefield of Little Big Horn. There he painted scenes of native life and portraits of members of the Plains tribes, including the Crow, Sioux, and Nez Pierce. In 1900, these portraits were exhibited in Washington, D.C., where the Smithsonian Institute initially bought eleven portraits of the participants of the Battle of the Little Big Horn. 

Sharp came to the attention of President Theodore Roosevelt, who took an interest in him and commissioned him to paint additional portraits of 200 Native American warriors who had survived the Battle of the Little Big Horn, which a sizeable portion ended up in the Smithsonian Institute.  The Smithsonian Institute was interested in having a record o the transition of the American Plains Indians life from the old to the new.  During this same time frame, Phoebe Hearst (mother of Williams Randolph Hearst) became aware and bought 80 of Sharp's paintings of Native Americans.  This enabled him to quit teaching, and through Mrs. Hearst interest and commissions was directly responsible for the incentive that brought Sharp to the Crow Agency in South Eastern Montana in 1902.  His subjects did not stop at only portraitures, however, as evidenced by his stunning compositional landscapes with their encampment scenes and their passive Native American genre.

Between 1902 and 1910, Sharp spent his time between Crow Agency Montana, predominantly in the winter month and Taos, New Mexico, in the summer/fall months, where he helped found the Taos Society of Artists. His portraits of Northern Plains and Southwest Pueblo Indians, and his landscapes of both the country around Taos and throughout eastern and northern Montana and northern Wyoming, combine the simplicity of subtle colors and strong flat planes. Sharps paintings are an extraordinary record left to us by a painter who brought the most careful attention to the lives of the people he painted, as well as a deep intimacy with the subtle light, dynamic forms, and presence of the land.

Sharp would go on to carve a niche for himself and his work that would claim title to extreme relevancy in the reflection of the Native American culture. The emphasis in his early career of southeastern and north central Montana and bordering Wyoming would come to be some of the most pursued artistic interpretations of its kind. For those who call Montana their home, and for those who seek to know her better, the works of Joseph Henry Sharp are a legacy not to be missed.