Women and Ledger Art

Plains Indians memorialized their
lives by drawing on animal hides with mineral pigments, using brushes made of bone
or wood. The destruction of the buffalo herds beginning in the 1860s made
animal hides more difficult to find.

At the same time, Plains tribes began
to obtain colored pencils, crayons, and pens, also canvas, muslin, and paper,
sometimes in the form of accounting or ledger books, from traders, government
agents, missionaries, or military officers.

The result was a form of artistic expression
now known as “ledger art.”

Ledger art flourished mostly from the
1860s to the 1920s, and a revival of ledger art began in the 1960s and 1970s.
Women artists played an important part in that revival.

Richard
Pearce
will talk about four of those women artists and how their work contributes to
Plains Indian history and culture. Mr. Pearce spent six years talking to the
artists about their work for his new book, Women
and Ledger Art.