End of the Trail
Artist
James Earle Fraser
(American, 1876 - 1953)
Datemodeled 1894; cast 1918
MediumBronze
DimensionsOverall: 30 3/8 × 30 3/8 × 23 inches (77.15 × 77.15 × 58.42 cm)
Credit LineGift of Mrs. Allan B. Sunderland in memory of Allan Boulter Sunderland
Object number60-42
On View
On viewGallery Location
- 218
Collections
Exhibition History
60th Anniversary, Business Men's Assurance Company of
America, Kansas City, Mo, September 20–21, 1969.
Exhibition of Images of American Indians, New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, November 22, 1980–March 22, 1981.
The American West Through the Artists' Eyes, Vilar Center for the Arts, Beaver Creek, CO, January 22–March 26, 1999.
James Earle Fraser's poignant End of the Trail is a tribute to native cultures devastated by government neglect and aggression. Inspired by a poem by Marion Manville Pope (1859-1930), the sculpture features a formerly strong and proud Plains warrior astride his staggering horse. Their slumping postures evoke both exhaustion and resignation.
Having spent a part of his youth in South Dakota, Fraser was particularly concerned about the plight of Plains Indians. He displayed a life-sized model of End of the Trail at San Francisco's Pan-Pacific Exposition in 1915, but wartime materials shortages prevented its execution in bronze.
Having spent a part of his youth in South Dakota, Fraser was particularly concerned about the plight of Plains Indians. He displayed a life-sized model of End of the Trail at San Francisco's Pan-Pacific Exposition in 1915, but wartime materials shortages prevented its execution in bronze.
To Mrs. Allan B. Sunderland;
to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Mo., 1960.
Patricia Janis Broder, Bronzes of the American West (New York: H.N. Abrams, 1974), 178-79 (repro.).
Henry Adams, Handbook of American Paintings in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City, Mo.: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1991), 117.
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William Earle Williams
2001, printed 2003
2008.67.8
