Charles Bird King's Works.

Charles Bird King was born in 1785 in Rhode Island. For his education to start in the art of  portraits he went to London at the age of twenty in 1805-1812 and studied under Benjamin West at the esteemed Royal Academy but because of the war in 1812 he had to leave the country and come back to America. When McKenney saw how the Native Americans as a race were starting to deplete he had King paint the government pictures so that we could remember them. During this period King created more than 143 paintings in the years of 1822 to 1842. 
Mostly Charles Bird King is a positive artist for the Native Americans because most of his portraits were made on request from Thomas Mckenney, head of the first BIA ( Bureau of Indian Affairs). King had the Indian diplomats come to Washington D.C, where his studio was located. Even though Thomas Mckenney was not Native American he made it known in the papers that he highly respected the Native Americans. From that you can gather that he would pick someone (Charles Bird King) who shared his respect.


AN IOWAY WARRIOR - The warrior in the painting is a native American with a dime like medal, dotted shirt, red robe, blue bandanna with red and yellow stripes, thin feathers out the top, and an silver calumet with red and whits stripes in his hand.





Shaumonekusse - This painting has Shaumonekusse wearing a what looks like talons around his neck, many beaded nickles, many earrings on one ear and he is head piece is red and green with red hair/feathers with two horns sticking from the top.





White Plum- This painting is of a woman, she appears to be trying to lift up her cloths and she has scraps and bruises on her shoulders and neck as if she was being bound by ropes. She is wearing a lot of jewelry which implies that she could be royal in the eyes of her tribe or she married a well off chief. She is also wearing a medallion on her neck.

Crouching Eagle -

The painting is of a Native American man that has no shirt on, but is wearing a white robe and has a black bandanna type hat on his head. He also has and gold chain around his neck. She is also wearing a pendent.

Young Omahaw, War Eagle, Little Missouri, and Pawnees - In this painting there are five chiefs standing together but they are not together. All the chiefs are looking off into the distance towards their tribes. The closest Indian to the viewer has a arrow in his arm. The five chiefs are all wearing face paint which could mean that they all are ready for war. Also the first Indian is wearing a pendent around his neck.

Eagle of Delight, also called Hayne Hudjihini in Chiwere - This painting is of a woman that appears to be wealthy she looks to be wearing a mink or some other type of fur. She is also wearing a lot of beads and she has a dot on her forehead. For being one of King's paintings she is not wearing a medallion around her neck.

Charles Bird King's common images were painting still portraits of Native Americans. His paintings were detailed and bright which made the portraits jump off there canvas. Charles also created most of his works using old panels which added to the life-likeness of his works.

In most of Kings artwork there were medallions on the necks of the Native Americans, and the medallions appeared to have the figurine head of George Washington. King also seems to give his Native American sitters some European style armor or cloths, which at this time could not be obtained by the average Native American.