A traveling exhibit of the Eastman Johnson art collection of Ojibwe life, created by the St. Louis County Historical Society, is now on display at the Cross River Heritage Center. Eastman Johnson was the founder of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. A prolific painter and traveler, Johnson lived in Superior, Wisconsin in 1856 and traveled through the Anishinaabe areas around Lake Superior, including what is now Grand Portage National Monument and Isle Royale National Park. The exhibit ties the past to the present with an oral history dialog with Grand Portage community members Ellen Olson, Vicky LeGarde Raske and Billy Blackwell.
The 2014 season at Cross River Heritage Center opened with a traveling exhibit created by St. Louis County Historical Society. It is their reproduction of the entire Eastman Johnson art collection of Ojibwe life. Eastman Johnson, a New Englander who founded the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, created these works in 1856-1857 while living in Duluth-Superior and Grand Portage.
A prolific painter and traveler, Eastman Johnson also visited the Apostle Islands and Isle Royale.
Patricia Condon Johnson, author of Eastman Johnson’s Lake Superior Indians, states Johnson’s collection ranks with the finest examples of Indians in art in the 19th century.
Contemporary Ojibwe artist Carl Gawboy said Johnson’s work was inspiration for his work as well. In an interview with MPR radio’s Stephanie Hemphill, Gawboy said Eastman Johnson’s works were so realistic that he felt he recognized many of the faces. Gawboy told MPR, “They are our real ancestral portraits because we can still see those faces today.”
Gawboy’s art was exhibited with Eastman Johnson’s collection at the Tweed Gallery in Duluth in 2006. Gawboy’s art, some of which can also be seen at the Grand Portage Heritage Center, is coming to the Cross River Heritage Center in August 2014.
Dr. Linda LeGarde Grover, professor of American Indian Studies at University of Minnesota-Duluth and curator for the St. Louis County Historical Society 2009 Eastman Johnson exhibition, wrote an article for the exhibition called Ojibwe Faces and Stories: The Legacy of Ancestral Portrait in the Eastman Johnson Lake Superior Indians Collection. In this article, appearing in St. Louis County Historical Society’s Rootprints Fall 2009 edition, Dr. Grover writes:
“The Ojibwe of Eastman Johnson’s portraits, just as they had an eye to the future and survival of their descendants and tribes in negotiating treaties, had their same eye in allowing their portraits to be drawn. I believe that they were thinking of those who would come after them as they allowed their portraits to be drawn. Their willingness to do so is evidence of the degree of trust they placed in the artist as well as the need they saw to preserve what is important for their descendants.”
The exhibit ties the past to the present with a continuing dialog with Lake Superior Annishinaabeg including Grand Portage community members Ellen Olson, Vicky LeGarde Raske and Billy Blackwell.
The Eastman Johnson exhibit and installation as well as programs for Cross River Heritage Center in 2014 are funded by The Cliffs Foundation. The Cross River Heritage Center opened May 23 and is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. and Sunday from 1 to 4 p.m. The center is closed Mondays.
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