Provenance:

Provenance: Private Collection, France

Description:

Burbank became one of the most noted artists who can boast to have painted more than 1200 portrait of Native Americans from 125 tribes, including being the only artist to have painted the great Geronimo, from life. His artistic training was limited to studying at the Chicago Academy of Design, graduating in 1874. Although two extended trips to Germany in both 1886 -7 and 1889 -90 where he studied with Paul Navin, Frederick Fehr and Toby Rosenthal were to prove very influential.

Burbank also spent two years working in London learning the trade as a portraitist. When he returned to Chicago in 1892, he continued in the same vein but soon turned his back on Society portraiture and instead focussed on portraits of African American children in the city. One such, ‘American Beauty’, depicted a young boy smelling an American Beauty rose was reproduced in the Sunday supplements of the Northwest Illustrated Monthly.

It was his uncle, Edward E. Ayer, that propelled him to greatness. A successful businessman and philanthropist and owner of one of the finest private libraries of books on American Indian culture, he commissioned Burbank to do a series of portraits of prominent Indian chiefs. His travels took him across the continent and the portraits he produced, are some of the most arresting and enduring portraits of these powerful figures.

This charming vignette of a striped paper bag with peanuts tumbling onto a white indeterminate tabletop is an uncommon subject matter for Burbank, although still lives by him are not unknown. They tend to date from the latter years of his life and the compositions are usually minimal, focussing on one or a few elements on a simple background. The relative simplicity of the subject matter is suddenly given weight by this focus and adds to the modernity of the painting.