​J. N. BARTFIELD GALLERIES

Cyrus Dallin 1861-1944

Born in Springville, Utah, Cyrus Dallin was the son of a true covered wagon pioneer. Dallin grew up among a variety of Native American peoples and made friends with many Indian boys. He loved to model animals in clay and his talent attracted the attention of patrons who, in 1879, paid his way to Boston where he pursued his studies. After another course of study in Paris, where he modeled his first Native American sculptures—one of which won an honorable mention at the Paris salon—Dallin returned to America, where he would devote much of his life and art to the plight of the American Indian and to incidents in American History. Dallin’s bronzes have a brilliant simplicity about them. Devoid of purely decorative elements, Dallin’s bronzes focus on strong, dramatic lines.  They continue to testify eloquently to the nobility and humanity of Native Americans as they were and are, not as they were and are imagined to have been in a distant, unfallen age.