Alfred Jacob Miller's Crow Indian on Horseback

Alfred Jacob Miller (1810-1874), Crow Indian on Horseback, 1844, oil on canvas, 19 1/8 x 23 38 inches. Clara S. Peck Fund bequest. 83.46.17

Alfred Jacob Miller shares with George Catlin the distinction of being part of the first generation of talented white artists to travel west of the Mississippi.  Unlike Catlin, however, for whom documentation of the native peoples was a personal obsession, Miller was plucked by his patron from a cultivated and relatively secure life and enjoined to embark upon a risky journey to places and among peoples for whom he had little prior interest, much less knowledge; in this regard, his experience was much like that of his other noted contemporary Karl Bodmer.

Born in fortunate circumstances in Baltimore, Maryland, Miller revealed his artistic talents at an early age and received the best training that an American of his time could expect.  He studied at Thomas Sully's Philadelphia studio before undertaking study in Paris at the cole des Beaux Arts.  Travel elsewhere on the Continent furthered his familiarity with the artistic achievements of Europe.  Ultimately he set himself up in a studio in New Orleans, and it was here that the patron who was to change the course of his life discovered him.

Captain William Drummond Stewart, a Scottish adventurer and sportsman who was experienced in traversing the American West, determined in 1837 to hire an artist to accompany him on his next foray.  It is questionable whether either Stewart or Miller recognized the exceptional nature of their undertaking.  Their journey in 1837 predates every official survey expedition with the exception of Lewis and Clark's, and in some of the areas visited, Miller was the first Euro-American artist to set foot in the territory.

Miller never saw the potential in his western images for self-aggrandizement, nor did he empathize with the fate of Native Americans to the point of recognizing how his work might further their needs.  He never envisioned a project to disseminate general familiarity with his work or its subject matter either in the form of a traveling exhibition (such as Catlin's) or a lavish publication (such as Bodmer's).  Indeed his work passed into obscurity--serving the decorative and documentary purposes for which it was originally conceived--and was only fairly recently rediscovered.