The Mourning Brave

Edwin Willard Deming, The Mourning Brave, ca. 1892, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of William T. Evans, 1912.9.1
Copied Edwin Willard Deming, The Mourning Brave, ca. 1892, oil on canvas, 40 x 30 in. (101.5 x 76.1 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of William T. Evans, 1912.9.1
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Artwork Details

Title
The Mourning Brave
Artist
Date
ca. 1892
Location
Not on view
Dimensions
40 x 30 in. (101.5 x 76.1 cm)
Credit Line
Gift of William T. Evans
Mediums
Mediums Description
oil on canvas
Classifications
Subjects
  • Indian
  • State of being — death
  • Figure group
  • Landscape — time — night
  • State of being — emotion — sorrow
Object Number
1912.9.1
Linked Open Data
https://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/1912.9.1

Artwork Description

Edwin Willard Deming’s paintings romanticized the lives of Native Americans, feeding the myth of a vanishing race of noble savages. In this painting an Indian brave mourns the death of an Indian woman inside a shadowed teepee. With his hands covering his face, he prays over her body, asking the Great Mystery, symbolized by the light that streams from above, to protect her spirit and guide it to the “Happy Western land beyond the Great Waters” (Walsh, ed., Edwin Willard Deming, His Work, 1925).