Primitive+Chant+to+the+Great+Spirit,+A

Date: modeled by 1901
 * [[image:https://s3.amazonaws.com/saam.media/files/styles/x_large/s3/images/1996/1996.27_1a.jpg?itok=3Bnk6lOO width="212" height="308" link="@https://americanart.si.edu/artwork/primitive-chant-great-spirit-35138"]] || Title: **A Primitive Chant to the Great Spirit**

Artist: **Hermon A. MacNeil** Born: Everett, Massachusetts 1866 Died: New York, New York 1947

Medium: Roman Bronze Works (Founder) bronze 24 1/2 x 6 1/8 x 8 3/4 in. (62.3 x 15.6 x 22.3 cm.) Smithsonian American Art Museum Gift of Maurice Kawashima in honor of Dr. Richard Wunder

Accession: 1996.27 || **Exhibition Label:** MacNeil has interpreted an Indian dancer as he chants into the crook of his upraised arm. The model for this sculpture was a Sioux Indian named Black Pipe, who was part of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Black Pipe remained in Chicago after the fair closed and became a regular model and studio assistant for MacNeil. The artist maintained a studio in Chicago, but traveled many times to the Southwest to observe Indian rituals, costumes, crafts, and ceremonies firsthand. In Primitive Chant,MacNeil captures the physical beauty and grace of the Native American, which he compared to that of Greek warriors.

[|Artist Biography] SAAM Collections Page
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