Lot 37: Solon Hannibal Borglum 1868 - 1922 , Sioux Indian Buffalo Dancer bronze, dark brown patina on a 23 1/2 in. wooden base

inscribed Solon Borglum © on the base bronze, dark brown patina on a 23 1/2 in. wooden base

measurements height: 28 1/2 in. alternate measurements (72.4 cm)

Patricia Janis Broder, Bronzes of the American West, New York, 1974, pp. 76, 79, illustration of another example pls. 74, 75
A. Mervyn Davies, Solon H. Borglum: A Man Who Stands Alone, no. 70, pp. 90, 275 as The Indian Dancer (fragment), illustration of the original staff sculpture p. 97

Carl Buckland (the Borglum family attorney)
Gallery of the Masters, St. Louis, Missouri
Sydney Melville Shoenberg, Jr., 1990 (acquired from the above; sold: Sotheby's, New York, May 22, 2002, lot 204, illustrated in color)
Acquired by the present owner at the above sale

Cast by the artist's family in an edition limited to eight, this noble figure of a dancer is from Solon Borglum's large sculptural composition, The Sioux Indian Buffalo Dance, which was conceived as part of a series of four sculptures (with The Pioneer in a Storm, Cowboy at Rest, and Steps Toward Civilization) on the theme of civilization moving west. The four works were cast in staff (plaster mixed with straw) at life size and were prominently displayed in 1904 at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition. Smaller casts of the figures were displayed at the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition in Portland, Oregon, in 1905, and at the Panama-Pacific World's Exposition in San Francisco in 1915.