Hiawatha

Augustus Saint-Gaudens

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Saint-Gaudens’s three years of study in Paris came to an abrupt end with the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War. He left for Rome in late 1870 and soon began Hiawatha, his first full-length statue, inspired by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s epic poem "The Song of Hiawatha" (1855). Seated on a rock in a contemplative pose, with his quiver of arrows and bow nearby, the fictional Ojibwe chief is "pondering, musing in the forest /On the welfare of his people," as an excerpt from Longfellow’s verse inscribed on the base declares. Saint-Gaudens was one of many artists who drew thematic inspiration from the poet's "Hiawatha," reinforcing the stereotype of the "vanishing" Native American. Read a Native Perspective on this work.

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