James Henderson | Wicite Owapi Wicasa

Exhibition Catalogue

admin — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 20:58:43 +0000

James Henderson: Wicite Owapi Wicasa, the man who paints the old men, documents the first thoroughly researched retrospective of works by the artist and is available for purchase at the Gallery Shop. The 223-page book, priced at $60, traces Henderson’s life and times, and is lavishly illustrated with the artist’s portraits and landscape paintings. Please direct all purchase inquiries to the Gallery Shop at (306) 975 7616.

Texts:

JAMES LANIGAN
Chronology of the Life, Career, Art, and Legacy of James Henderson

DAN RING
James Henderson: A Reflected Life

NEAL MCLEOD
Rethinking Indigenous History: James Henderson’s Paintings As Mnemonic Icons

LYNN ACOOSE
Qu’Appelle, circa 2009

LINDA MANY GUNS
SpiritWarriors of the High Plains

SHERRY FERRELL-RACETTE
Plains Cree Men’s Clothing (1895 – 1926)

SUSAN MCARTHUR
Profiles of Standing Buffalo, Tatanka Najin (1833–1871)

JAMES LANIGAN
Note on James Henderson’s materials and signatures

Publication credits & information:

Directed funding for the research, production, circulation of this exhibition and this book was provided by Museum Assistance Program of the Department of Canadian Heritage, John M. and Ethelene Gareau, Calgary and PotashCorp. This support is gratefully acknowledged.

Editor: Fine Line Editing, Morna Greuel, Saskatoon

Design: Susan Chafe, Winnipeg, MB

Printer: Freisens, Altona MB

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Henderson, James, 1871-1951
James Henderson : wicite owapi wicasa / curators, Dan
Ring, Neal McLeod ; essays by Dan Ring … [et al.].

Catalogue of a travelling exhibition held first at the Mendel
Art Gallery from Sept. 25, 2009 to Jan. 8, 2010.
Includes bibliographical references.
Text in English and French; includes some text in
Blackfoot, Cree and Dakota.
ISBN 978-1-896359-70-0

1. Henderson, James, 1871-1951–Exhibitions. 2. Indians of
North America–Canada–Folklore. 3. Indians in art. I. Ring, Dan
II. McLeod, Neal III. Mendel Art Gallery IV. Title.

ND249.H45A4 2009 759.11 C2009-903973-7E

CPR Locomotive in Winter

admin — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:25:33 +0000

By fall of 1910, Henderson was providing illustrations for a monthly magazine, The Trail, first published in Regina, and then in 1911, in Winnipeg. The Trail was profusely illustrated and featured political articles related to farm and industrial concerns, fiction, including murder mysteries and tales with dramatic Western themes, as well as articles on Indiginous peoples, poetry and humour. A typical magazine of its time, The Trail focused on Western development and Boosterism; many of the full-page advertisements were for real estate and boomtown expansion. Henderson’s first signed graphic work appears in the September, 1910 issue and continues until late 1911, when the magazine ceased publication. During that time, he was the chief graphic artist, contributing colour covers, frontispieces and the majority of the lithographed illustrations, which were, with few exceptions, in black and white. Henderson’s colour covers for The Trail, such as the dramatic winter train scene for the February, 1911 issue, were initially rendered in gouache and then produced as an offset lithograph for the magazine.

-Dan Ring

James Henderson (from left)

CPR Locomotive in Winter, c. 1910-11
gouache on card
27.5 x 20.0 cm
Collection of James Lanigan, Calgary, Alberta.

CPR Locomotive in Winter (Cover of The Trail magazine, February 1911), 1911
modern print
Courtesy of the Manitoba Legislative Library, Winnipeg.

Evening

admin — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 14:42:55 +0000

Henderson was fond of painting the Qu’Appelle Valley at different times of year and at different times of the day and night. His nocturnes often show the moon over the Qu’Appelle River near his studio, or rising above the hills of the valley. The nocturne was a favourite theme of late nineteenth century British art as it was suited for an exploration of vague and undefined forms, atmospheric effects, and subtle tonal harmonies. This can be clearly seen in the work of Robert Macaulay Stevenson (1854–1952), one of the painters associated with the Glasgow Boys, whose nocturnes resemble Henderson’s and whose work Henderson may have seen in Glasgow and London. Although it’s unlikely Henderson would have known the work of American artist Pinkham Ryder http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Pinkham_Ryder (1847–1917), Evening shares in his sensibility and technique of using layers of thick paint. Ryder’s mystical seascapes are dominated by evening skies with the moon crossed by mist or scudding clouds. Evening likewise evokes a scene of trees shrouded in shadow and quivering with a kind of unknown dream life. The clouds move in an arch over the trees like a living thing influenced by the moon, which rises through pale clouds into a sere and unutterably peaceful landscape. This work appears to be a view from his studio looking south to Cemetery Hill. In the mid ground are barely discernible buildings and trees masked in a shroud of scumbled pigment that creates a sense of dense material, like the woods themselves.
-Dan Ring

Evening, c. 1930
Oil on canvas
30.6 x 35.9 cm
Collection of the Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon, SK.

Biography

admin — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:26:57 +0000

James Henderson, born on August 21, 1871 in Glasgow, Scotland, is considered to be Saskatchewan’s pre-eminent first-generation artist. An early aptitude to sketch and draw led to an apprenticeship in lithography, complemented by night courses at the Glasgow School of Art, where he was influenced by the resident and then-popular Scottish Impressionists. Following employment in London as an engraver and lithographer, Henderson immigrated to Canada in 1910 and settled in Regina, where he engaged in commercial art assignments. Periodic visits to the picturesque Qu’Appelle Valley appealed to his artistic sensibilities and resulted in relocation to Fort Qu’Appelle in 1916.

At his peak, Henderson was widely known as a painter of First Nations portraits expressive of innate dignity. He exhibited portraits at the 1924 and 1925 British Empire Exhibitions at Wembley, the same venues where Canada’s acclaimed Group of Seven first achieved international recognition. (In critical retrospect, many of the portraits are now considered more important as historical records than for their artistic merit. Very few were painted after 1932.) Fort Qu’Appelle’s Standing Buffalo Reserve named Henderson as Honorary Chief Wicite Owapi Wicasa, “the man who paints the old men.”

Henderson is best remembered for the artistic mastery of his landscapes, particularly those in which he captured the charm of his beloved Qu’Appelle Valley in all its moods and seasons: the rebirth of spring, the glory of summer, the finality of autumn, and the bleakness of winter—spanning all times of day and night. He also painted landscapes in British Columbia, Alberta, and Ontario’s Muskoka Lakes region. Henderson was a Member of the Ontario Society of Artists; he periodically exhibited in Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal, and in 1936 with the Royal Canadian Academy (although he was never elected as a member). A career highlight was the National Gallery of Canada’s acquisition of one portrait and two landscapes from 1928 to 1932.

In the annals of Saskatchewan art history, Henderson was the first to make a living solely from creating art, without depending upon teaching income, and he was the first to gain national and international recognition. For his achievements, he received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of Saskatchewan in 1951. Henderson died on July 5, 1951, in Regina, and was buried overlooking the valley at Fort Qu’Appelle.

- James E. Lanigan
Reproduced with permission from the Encyclopedia of Saskatchewan

The Paint Shop

admin — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 17:17:54 +0000

Henderson “always spoke of his studio as his paint shop,” and it was here that he spent a good part of his time working steadily. The studio was a substantial building, heated with a Franklin stove so he could work year round. Like the house it was comfortably furnished with antique chairs, rugs, and family memorabilia such as his father’s Master Mariner certificate. A bookcase, still in the studio today, contains novels, volumes of poetry by Robert Burns, books on art such as Ruskin’s The Stones of Venice and The Two Paths, Carlyle’s Sartor Resartus, and a photographic book, American Indian Life. In the studio were a number of Aboriginal artifacts, including a bone breastplate, beaded leggings, a Dakota headdress and striped and checked blankets, used as studio props for the portraits. Henderson would pose his visitors from nearby Reserves in the studio with these artifacts sometimes on a chair in front of a canvas to judge effects of scale and lighting. Occasionally he would take pictures of them outside of the studio against the landscape.

The Marsh

admin — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 19:06:56 +0000

This work is a large-scale exhibition canvas that shows the marsh at the end of Pasqua Lake, before the building of the Echo Lake Dam in 1941–2, located just east of the Henderson home in Fort Qu’Appelle. The dam raised the level of Echo and Pasqua Lakes by as much as three feet and flooded the marsh, a traditional Indigenous hunting area also used by settlers for the same purpose. The Antepa Club was located near here as well. This remains a contested issue today and negotiations are underway to compensate the Pasqua reserve for the flooding. In this way, Henderson’s painting is an important historical document that reflects the changing realities of life in the Qu’Appelle Valley.
-Dan Ring

James Henderson
The Marsh, c. 1918
oil on canvas
61.0 x 76.2 cm
Collection of James Lanigan, Calgary, AB.

Chief Shot on Both Sides > Audio

admin — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 17:54:45 +0000

Chief Shot Both Sides was a member of the Blood Nation in Southern Alberta. The Bloods are one of four tribes that make up the Blackfoot Confederacy. The Blood Nation Reserve is the largest reserve in Canada boasting close to 350,000 acres.

Chief Shot Both Sides was the son of a long line of Chiefs. His father was Crop–Eared Wolf and he was also the grandson of Red Crow, Head signatory to Treaty Seven. Shot Both Sides was born in 1874, and was just three years old at the signing of Treaty Seven. The robe of Head Chief fell to Shot Both Sides upon the death of his father in 1913.

Listen to Linda Many Guns recount his escapades in war and important friendships (2m 30s).

James Henderson
Chief Shot on Both Sides, c. 1927
oil on canvas on board
74.3 x 59.7 cm
Collection of the Glenbow-Alberta Institute, Glenbow Museum, Calgary, AB.

Photographer Unknown
Chief Shot on Both Sides, Blood Reserve, Alberta., 1949
Archival Photograph
Courtesy of the Glenbow-Alberta Institute, Glenbow Museum, Calgary, AB.

Photographic Practices > Audio

admin — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 14:42:59 +0000

Robert Phillips on photographic practices

Following the earlier example of Paul Kane, through the 1880’s and into the 1920’s, many Canadian and American painters such as Edmund Morris, Frederick Verner, Emily Carr and Langdon Kihn, and photographers such as Edward Curtis, O.E. Buell and Geraldine Moodie, embarked on extensive projects to document the ‘vanishing races” for posterity, a project we now see was conflicted and fraught with contradiction.

Although crucial to Henderson’s artistic process, photography is never mentioned in the many newspaper articles about his portraits, perhaps because it may have, by the standards of the time, contradicted the romantic notion of him as a painter directly engaged with his subjects. Henderson was a good if not accomplished photographer in both the documentary and Pictorialist manner and used these photographs as the basis or reference points for both portraits and landscapes. As well, he had reference books in his studio including, American Indian Life, edited by Elsie Clews Parson and illustrated by Grant Lafarge, an important anthology of pieces about Indian life and cultures. He may also have been aware of Morris’s use of photography in his project and certainly of the photographs of Edward Curtis in The North American Indian. Interestingly, Curtis corresponded with Gooderham, and was photographing the Blackfoot in Alberta in 1924 including Bull Bear, who was painted by Henderson in 1923. Curtis was also in Northern Saskatchewan to photograph the Cree in 1926.

James Henderson (from left)

Untitled (possibly Dick Rider) in James Henderson’s Studio, 1940
vintage gelatin silver print on paper
14.8 x 9.2 cm
Collection of the MacKenzie Art Gallery.

Eliza Rider and Child in Henderson Studio, c. 1930
vintage gelatin silver print on paper
14.7 x 8.7 cm
Collection of the MacKenzie Art Gallery.

Photographic Practices - Comparative Images

admin — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 17:54:43 +0000

James Henderson (from left)

Eliza Rider and Child, c. 1930
vintage gelatin silver print with graphite grid on paper
14.6 x 8.6 cm
Collection of Diane Morris, Fort Qu’Appelle, SK.

Photograph of a James Henderson painting: Eliza Rider and Child, c. 1930
gelatin silverprint with graphite grid on paper
15.1 x 12.2 cm
Collection of Diane Morris, Fort Qu’Appelle, SK.

Portrait of Eliza Rider and Child (Dakota), 1930
oil on canvas
77.0 x 61.0 cm
University of Saskatchewan Art Collection, purchased from the artist, 1930.

James Henderson (from left)

Portrait of Weasel Calf, 1924
Oil on canvas
60.0 x 45.0 cm
University of Saskatchewan Art Collection. Purchased from the artist, 1924.

Attributed to James Henderson
Weasel Calf, Blackfoot posing at Gleichen, Alberta (c. 1923) and an Interior of Henderson’s Studio (c. 1930),
Digital print from R. C. Russell album
Courtesy of Lorna Russell and Clint Hunker, Saskatoon, SK.

Chief Weasel Calf (A Sioux), c. 1924
Oil on canvas
61.6 x 46.4 cm
MacKenzie Art Gallery, University of Regina Collection. Gift of the Women’s Educational Club.

James Henderson (from left)

Blackfoot man posing at Gleichen, Alberta, c. 1923
digital print from C.R. Russell Album
Courtesy of Lorna Russell and Clint Hunker, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

Male Indian Head (Blackfoot), c. 1923
oil on cardboard
25.3 x 20.2 cm
MacKenzie Art Gallery, University of Regina Collection, gift of Mr. Norman MacKenzie.

James Henderson (from left)

T. Charmbury
Imasees, Little Bear, Cree., ca. 1885
Archival Photograph
Courtesy of the Glenbow-Alberta Institute, Glenbow Museum, Calgary, AB.

Chief Little Bear (ayimâsis), c. 1924
oil on wood panel
22.9 x 19 cm
Collection of the Glenbow-Alberta Institute, Glenbow Museum, Calgary, AB.

James Henderson (from top left)

Portrait of Many Chiefs, 1927
oil on canvas
77.0 x 61.0 cm
University of Saskatchewan Art Collection, purchased from the artist, 1927.

Many Chiefs, Peigan Indian, c. 1927
oil on canvas
61.5 x 46.0 cm
Collection of the Glenbow-Alberta Institute, Glenbow Museum, Calgary, AB.

Many Chiefs, c. 1927
oil on canvas
61.5 x 46.0 cm
Collection of the Glenbow-Alberta Institute, Glenbow Museum, Calgary, AB.

Comparative Images (Animation)

admin — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 19:14:49 +0000