Bronze sculpture entitled Chief Black Bird, Oglala Sioux signed on back of the piece by the artist Adolph Alexander Weinman (American, 1870-1952) Roman Bronze Works, NY 16x16x13
Replacement Value: $225,000
Adolph Alexander Weinman is best known for his architectural sculpture and for designing the “Walking Liberty” on the half-dollar and ten-cent coins of 1916. Weinman was born in Karlsruhe, Germany in 1870 and came to the United States at the age of ten. Weinmann first studied at the Cooper Union School in New York and later at the Art Students League in New York. For five years he studied at the studio of the sculptor, Philip Martiny, and improved his artistic skills as a student of the famous Augustus Saint-Gaudens.
Weinman opened a studio in New York, where his figure sculptures were well received. By 1906 he was elected a member of the National Academy. Works by Weinman can be found in a number of museum collections, including the Eiteljorg Museum in Indianapolis, and the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Weinman’s model was a recognizable, living hero: Chief Blackbird, an Oglala veteran of the Great Sioux War of 1876, whom he met in 1903 in New York when Blackbird performed in Colonel Frederick T. Cummins’ “Indian Congress and Life on the Plains”.
