THE ABORIGINAL PORT FOLIO
145
Apparently, the War Department was pleased
with his efforts and he attended several other
treaty congresses, including the Treaty of Fond
du Lac, 1826; the Treaty of Green Bay, 1827; the
Treaty of Mississiniwa, 1826; and the Treaty of
Fort Wayne, 1827. Lewis created vivid images
of Native American notables at each of these,
carefully noting the subjects’ names and cultural
affi liations as well as details of their clothing
and accouterments. The images were sent to the
War Department and were kept as records of the
treaty meetings. Many were copied by such artists
as Charles Bird King and Henry Inman, who
created full-scale oil portraits based on them.
While these were important works of cultural
and political documentation, Lewis’ most tangible
contribution was to come some years later
with the publication of The Aboriginal Port
Folio in 1835 and 1836. This was a series of
folio-size lithographs executed by George Lehman
and Peter S. Duval of Philadelphia based
on Lewis’ original images. This was launched
as a ten-volume monthly subscription series,
with each volume containing eight hand-colored
images following brief introductory text. They
were marketed at two dollars apiece beginning
in May 1835 for a total of twenty dollars for
the series. This predated the McKenney and Hall
series and thus was the earliest series of color
images of Native American subjects to be commercially
published.
Unfortunately, the project was plagued with
problems in production and fi nance, perhaps
in part because of Lewis’ efforts to complete it
before McKenney and Hall’s fi rst volume was
released. The cover of volume eight is a crude
hand rendering of the professional engravings
featured on the others. Volume ten was issued
in an especially limited run and only fi ve of the
eight images in it are attributable to Lewis. The
dates and volume number on its cover are hand
written. Only a handful of complete sets with
ten volumes and eighty plates are known to exist
today. An eleventh volume, Historical and
Biographical Description of the Indians, which
was to contain documentary text to augment the
images, apparently was not produced. However,
the project went through limited reprints. A
London edition titled The North American Aboriginal
Port-Folio was published by Ackermann
& Co. in 1838 and featured seven hand-colored
plates from the original published opposite detailed
descriptive information about the subjects
of each. Another North American Aboriginal
Port-Folio was published by George Adlard of
New York in 1839. It was illustrated with inferior
reworked images by Bufford’s Lithography
and, like the London edition, features descriptive
text and boasts considerably more entries.
The text reveals that Lewis had interviewed his
subjects in some depth and kept detailed notes.
Lewis’ images as reproduced in these folios
show a strong attention to detail. The various
elements of clothing, jewelry, accessories, and
Western trade items are carefully and accurately
rendered. The same cannot be said for his portraiture.
The faces of his subjects are consistently
depicted similarly and in a caricature-like
manner, with high cheekbones, a projecting
nose, and a receding chin. Whether this
is the result of his limitations as an artist
or a deliberate effort to highlight his subjects
as being of non-European descent is
unclear.
Lewis died in New York in 1858. Sadly,
his artwork did not survive much longer.
His originals had been moved from the War
Department to the Smithsonian, where the
infamous fi re of 1865 destroyed the entire
body of work. None of his originals are
known to have survived. The only records of his
work known to us today are his published folios
and the works of other artists that were copied
from his. Twenty-seven of the 150 prints that
make up McKenney and Hall’s History of the Indian
Tribes of North America are based on Lewis
images (fi g. 12) and a number of paintings by
Charles Bird King, themselves copied by others,
also interpret Lewis’ originals (fi g. 13). An inventory
that Lewis self-published in 1850, Catalogue
of the Indian Gallery, provides only tantalizing
hints at the works that were lost forever.
NOTES
1. See Tom McLaughlin, “Between the Seas: Images of Plains Indians
by Karl Bodmer,” Tribal Art magazine, autumn/winter 2008.
2. See Mille Gabriel, “Preserving the Vanishing: Images of Native
Americans by Charles Bird King,” Tribal Art magazine, winter
2012.
3. James Otto Lewis, introduction to The Aboriginal Port Folio, no. 1,
May 1835.
FIG. 13 (above): Henry
Inman (1801–1846),
after Charles Bird King,
after James Otto Lewis,
Tshi-Zun-Hau-Kau (He-
Who-Runs-with-Deer),
Winnebago, c. 1832.
Oil on canvas. 76.8 x 64.1 cm.
Ex Thomas L. McKenney, 1832–
c. 1844; Tileston & Hollingsworth,
Boston, MA, c. 1844; Peabody
Museum of Archaeology and
Ethnology, Harvard University, 1882;
Gerald P. Peters Gallery, Santa Fe,
NM, 1981; private collection, Dallas,
TX, 1981–2004; Gerald Peters
Gallery, Santa Fe, NM, 2004.
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco,
museum purchase, gift of the Richard
C. von Hess Foundation,
inv. 2004.165.
Note that in his right hand, Tshi-
Zun-Hau-Kau holds a calendar stick
of his own invention, believed to
currently be held in the collection of
the Cranbrook Institute of Science
and the subject of a monograph by
Robert H. Merrill in that institution’s
Bulletin no. 24, October 1945.