The Arrow Dance

Louis McClellan Potter

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Potter studied in Paris in the late 1890s before setting up a studio in New York. Beginning in 1904, he traveled to the American West and to Alaska, producing statuettes based on his interactions with Indigenous peoples. He completed several sculptures interpreting Sioux rituals, including The Arrow Dance, in which a solitary figure points to an arrow lying on the ground. The pose implies rhythmic movement and a thorough absorption in the ceremonial dance.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.

Metropolitan Museum of Art