Red Cloud, a Lakota war leader and chief, is seen with photographer Alexander Gardner in Washington, D.C., in May 1872. Photo from Photographs of Red Cloud and Principal Chiefs of Dacotah Indians
An exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery features historic photos of former president Abraham Lincoln and tribal leaders who traveled to the nation's capital during a key period of transformation in the United States. Dark Fields of the Republic: Alexander Gardner Photographs, 1859-1872 includes portraits of tribal leaders alongside U.S. leaders like Lincoln and military generals. Many posed at the Washington, D.C., studio of Alexander Gardner. "Gardner’s images of tribal leaders in his Washington studio unravel the myth of the West as a faraway land of noble Indians fighting equally noble cowboys. It places Native American leaders in the same spot where American military figures were photographed, giving them visual if not actual equality," art and architecture critic Philip Kennicott writes for The Washington Post. The exhibit opens today and runs through March 13, 2016. Get the Story:
Photographing a nation in motion (The Washington Post 9/18)
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