Jerry Saltz Reviews Fort Marion and Beyond

In his review of our exhibition Fort Marion and Beyond: Native American Ledger Art, 1865-1900 in New York Magazine, Jerry Saltz emphasises the visionary art created by Nokkoist (Bear’s Heart) and Ohettoint during their incarceration at Fort Marion, in St. Augustine, Florida. On view during Master Drawings New York, “curators might rectify the inexplicable and disappointing arm’s-length stance the art world has so far adopted toward this work,” the author notes.

Fort Marion and Beyond is a major survey exhibition of Plains pictographic art created by warrior artists in the second half of the 19th century. The core of the presentation is formed by a group of works of art created by Cheyenne and Kiowa warrior artists Nokkoist (Bear’s Heart, 1851-1882) and Ohettoint (1852-1934) during their incarceration at Fort Marion in St. Augustine, Florida between 1875-1878. The fort commander, Captain Richard Henry Pratt (1840-1924) provided a group of 26 warriors with art supplies, allowing them to create drawings for sale to tourists in nearby St. Augustine or to be gifted to politicians and like-minded reformers. The drawings created by Bear’s Heart and Ohettoint depict the artists’ lived experiences inside the fort, including a bird-eye view of the Native inmates in military formation and a sailing tour around Anastasia Island. Other drawings are more immediately rooted in the earlier Plains pictographic tradition of recording the military prowess of particular individuals, capturing warrior processions, buffalo hunting, and the Sun Dance. “It is tempting to see subversion or resistance in these drawings,” Saltz writes, “but I am more struck by their clarity and honesty. The great depth of this art comes from the witness the artists bore, the atrocities they lived through with the steadiest and truest of gazes. They ask you to open your eyes as they did so that you might see.”