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Dancer / Jim Lacy Red Corn

Essay/Description

This painting depicts a man dancing in the War Dance or Fancy Dance style, which has origins in the Southern Plains Nations and was popularized by twentieth-century Powwow or intertribal social dance gatherings. His white deer-tail-hair or porcupine-hair headdress is adorned with a green-tufted eagle feather. He has a green fabric headband and scarf, and wears two large eagle-feather bustles, also green-tufted, on his shoulders and waist. The dancer’s wrists and forearms are covered by hide cuffs, and he carries a carved-wood mirror and a flute. He wears a beaded belt and red breechcloth; a pair of bells tied to both legs below the knee; and sheepskin hides around his calves.

The lack of shading and background in this painting exemplifies the Flatstyle technique, and Osage artist Jim Lacy Red Corn’s use of color-blocking emphasizes the subject.

—Jordan Poorman Cocker, Henry Luce Foundation Curatorial Scholar for Indigenous Painting Collection Research, 2021

This text was developed from an interview with Talee Redcorn, Jim Red Corn’s son, by Jordan Poorman Cocker, January 19, 2021

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Title(s): 
Dancer
Creator(s): 
Jim Lacy Red Corn (Artist)
Culture: 
Native American; Osage
Date: 
1959
Materials/Techniques: 
gouache on paper
Paper/Support: 
Portrait; single-sided; 8 15/16 x 12in (22.8 x 30.4cm) 0.455-0.464mm Cream colored, textured, machine made paper. Evenly distributed fibers in transmitted light.
Classification: 
Object Type: 
Credit Line: 
Purchased with funds gifted by the Frankie Van Johnson Fund
Accession No: 
02.1937
Previous Number(s): 
TL 1997.78; 0227.1937; TL1997.78; 37572
Department: 
Not On View

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