Frederick Weygold

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The Vanguard of the Herd : An oil painting by Frederick Weygold depicting a migratory herd of bison on the prairie off the Black Hills of South Dakota

Frederick Weygold (* 13. June 1870 in Saint Charles , Missouri ; † 13. August 1941 in Louisville , Kentucky ) was an American painter , photographer and ethnographer , the life and culture of the North American Indians mainly with examples of different Sioux tribes explored and presented it artistically and scientifically.

Origin and development

Frederick Weygold's parents were German immigrants. Originally his full German name was Friedrich Heinrich Phillip Adolph Weygold . Born into such a time and environment as he is, as a child he will surely have made a deep impression on him when he heard the reports about the Indians who fought their last battles out on the prairies ; while seeing the settlers heading west with their covered wagons. (St. Charles was the starting point of Boonlick Road, which the settlers took to the great trails to Oregon or Santa Fe .) The father was a pastor in the Louisville Evangelical Church. In the thus secured existence of the family, however, there was a shadow: the poor health of the mother. Therefore Frederick was placed in another family for upbringing. In 1875 he began his school days in the log cabin of a village school - "at a log cabin school" - near St. Charles. He later attended a public school in Louisville. The year 1885 became very significant for his development when his mother died in St. Louis and his father sent him to Germany, where he first attended high school in Essen and then in Duisburg . - After graduating from high school in 1893, he returned to the United States. Meanwhile his father had remarried. Still undecided about his professional goal and guided by his father, Frederick attended a Presbyterian seminary in Louisville for a short time . In 1894 he was back in Europe.

In Strasbourg , which was German at the time, he began to study New Languages and History . When at some point he read an Indian grammar - probably a pictorial script of the Sioux - his interest in the natives of North America was aroused; the impressions of his childhood in Missouri will also have contributed. The discovery of many exhibits of Indian folk art in European museums was further stimulating for him . All this, together with an artistic inclination, made him change his education. So he broke off his studies in Strasbourg in 1896 and began a new one, first at the Art Academy in Karlsruhe and then at the one in Stuttgart , where he graduated in 1899. After looking around in the European cultural world, he traveled back to America in 1902.

Research and creation

Back in the States, Weygold, now well aware of his destiny, visited the reservations of the Sioux Indians. He lived among them for a while to learn their language and to become familiar with their thoughts and feelings. That started something that eventually made him a great connoisseur of these people . In addition, he continued his artistic training with the famous American painter William Merritt Chase at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia .

And then again and again over the years his research work with the Indians. He probably spent most of his time with the Sioux tribes, especially the Oglala . But he also visited the Cheyenne , Kiowa, and Blackfeet in Montana ; maybe others too. But wherever: he observed Indian life, wrote, drew, talked to people, listened to them. He published the results of his research in European journals and he also put together collections for German museums. Probably no one had studied the Indians so extensively before him. Although he only saw a glimpse of her previous life, there were still many people living in the reservations who had lived through the old days, such as the famous Red Cloud , which Weygold painted and photographed. This chief and many other older men and women will certainly have told him a lot more that went into his work.

One of the photos from 1909 in Pine Ridge: It shows Short Bull (Tatanka Ptechela) as the “priest” of the spirit dance , of which he had previously been one of the leaders (around 1890)
Chief Red Cloud (Maxpiya Luta), oil painting from 1909

In 1908, Weygold moved from Philadelphia to Louisville, Kentucky, to take care of his sick father. In the summer of 1909, on behalf of the Museum für Völkerkunde zu Hamburg, he traveled to South Dakota to the Pine Ridge Reservation to the Oglala, where he took many photographs that decades later the German archaeologist and ethnologist Wolfgang Haberland found so interesting and valuable that he took them Published in 1986 in a photo book together with its own accompanying text. The recordings, according to Haberland the core of the book, appear very natural and not as posed as, for example, Indian recordings by Edward Curtis and Johan A. Jacobsen . The different expressiveness of the pictures seems to be due to the fact that Weygold worked without a tripod at the time and so the people were quite unselfconscious when taking pictures. In addition, Frederick Weygold documented the ancient sign language of the Indians in a series of exactly 60 images in the book, which was probably the first time photographically. - Frederick Weygold has also been involved yet in some other books he illustrated, with Buchschmuck provided and for which he wrote the notes. In the spotlight here are Ohijesa of Charles A. Eastman , whose design can be described only as a loving, and Natahki and I by James Willard Schultz , where, in addition, and for the only time of Weygold an essay (about the Blackfoot has been added).

A watercolor by Frederick Weygold showing a Winnebago medicine bag and Cheyenne moccasins

In Louisville, which he was to keep as his residence until his death, Weygold created many oil paintings as well as beautiful, detailed watercolors of Indian utensils in his studio . In addition, he has evaluated and processed the observations recorded outside with "his" Indians in notebooks such as sketches etc. He has corresponded with the American writer and historian Stanley Vestal for decades. The correspondence can be viewed in original manuscripts at the University of Oklahoma . A few years before his death, Weygold bequeathed a number of paintings - including the Red Cloud - to the Speed ​​Art Museum in Louisville. He has been very active in the Kentucky art scene, and if illness has not prevented him from doing so, he will probably have been busy with his work to the end; in any case, he was still writing texts for his pictures in an exhibition catalog in 1940.

literature

  • Frederick Weygold: The Indian leather tent in the Royal Museum of Ethnology in Berlin , Verlag Vieweg, Braunschweig 1903
  • Frederick Weygold: The Hunkazeremonie , Vieweg Verlag, Braunschweig 1912
  • JW Schultz: Natahkí and me. My life among black-footed Indians , book decorations and notes by Frederick Weygold, Harvest Verlag, Hamburg 1922
  • JW Schultz: In Natahkí's tent. My life as an Indian , book decorations and notes by Frederick Weygold, Harvest Verlag, Hamburg 1925
  • Frederick Weygold: The Indian sign language: and, The winter count of Lone Dog , published by The JB Speed ​​Memorial Museum, Louisville 1935–1940
  • Frederick Weygold: The Indian Collection , published by The JB Speed ​​Memorial Museum, Louisville 1940
  • Wolfgang Haberland: The Oglala Weygold Collection in the Hamburg Museum of Ethnology , Part 1–9; Series of publications: Communications from the Museum für Völkerkunde Hamburg, Volumes 3–4, 6–8, 10–12, 14; Hamburg 1973–1984
  • Wolfgang Haberland, Frederick Weygold: Ich, Dakota - Pine Ridge Reservation 1909 , Verlag Dietrich Reimer, Berlin 1986, ISBN 3-496-01038-X
  • Charles A. Eastman: Ohijesa youth memories of a Sioux Indian , book decorations and notes by Frederick Weygold, Insel Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1976, ISBN 3-458-32219-1
  • Charles A. Eastman: Winona. Indian stories from old times , illustrations by Frederick Weygold, Insel Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1996
  • Wiebke Ahrndt : Red Cloud, Blue Horse. Pictures from the life of the Sioux , illustrations: Frederick Weygold, Adrian Jacobsen, Bernd Jonkmanns, Verlag Christians, Hamburg 1997, ISBN 3-7672-1277-3
  • Silja Behnken: The old Indian life in pictures: Photographs by Frederick Weygold; Series of publications: Communications from the Museum für Völkerkunde Hamburg, in Alt -gypt, Vol. 30, pp. 329–345; Hamburg 2001, ISBN 3-86097-540-4
  • Stanley Vestal: Happy Hunting Grounds , Illustrated by Frederick Weygold, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman 1975
  • Edward S. Curtis: The Indians of North America , TASCHEN publishing house, Cologne 2005, ISBN 3-8228-4770-4
  • Christian Feest , C. Ronald Corum: Frederick Weygold. Artist and explorer of North American Indians . ZKF Publishers, Altenstadt 2017, ISBN 978-3-9818412-1-3

Web links

Commons : Frederick Weygold  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Weygold, Frederick
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American painter, photographer and ethnographer
DATE OF BIRTH June 13, 1870
PLACE OF BIRTH Saint Charles , Missouri
DATE OF DEATH August 13, 1941
Place of death Louisville , Kentucky