Joslyn

Karl Bodmer
Mató-Tópe (Four Bears)
Mandan Chief (1834)

Joslyn Art Museum houses one of the finest assemblages of American Frontier art in the Maximilian-Bodmer Collection. Karl Bodmer was a skilled 23 year-old artist when he joined German naturalist Maximilian zu Wied on a remarkable two-year trek to document the western American wilderness in 1832. No other early expedition had pictured the western frontier and its native inhabitants in such exquisite detail. Bodmer captured the character and pride of native people (and their leaders) in a series of watercolor portraits that became models for the prints that illustrated Maximilian's book, Travels in the Interior of North America. Bodmer's pioneering watercolors are art treasures of Nebraska at Joslyn Art Museum.