Sitting Bull from Cowboys and Indians

Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987)

Sitting Bull from Cowboys and Indians

ca. 1986

Screen print

2013.50.7

The screen print of Sitting Bull was based on a well-known 1881 photograph of the Hunkapapa Lakota Sioux chief taken by Orlando Scott Goff in Bismarck, North Dakota. In 1876, Sitting Bull led a united confederation of Lakota tribes to defeat General George Armstrong Custer at the Battle of Little Bighorn. He was forced to surrender several years later after his forces were nearly decimated by starvation and the inhospitable conditions of the Saskatchewan territory to which they fled in the years following the battle. This photograph was taken shortly after his surrender.

It has been argued that depicting Native American leaders in the style of Pop Art trivialized their resistance to American expansion and the government’s appropriation of lands previously held by indigenous groups. While Warhol himself never made a definitive statement on Native American activism, his Cowboys and Indians series encourages the viewer to consider the dissonance created by pairing images of Native American leaders with celebrity heroes like John Wayne and Annie Oakley.

Extra, out of the edition. Designated for research and educational purposes only. The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.

© The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. Photo by Bruce M. White, 2018.