Search the Collection - Addison Gallery

☰ Open Filter >>

John Willis , b. 1957

The Mass Gravesite at Wounded Knee from the 1890 Massacre

2007
4 1/2 x 31 3/8 in. (11.43 x 79.69 cm)

Medium and Support: Inkjet print

Credit Line: gift of the artist in honor of Eugene Reddest and Tommy Crow

Accession Number: 2014.25

Commentary

This image is part of an ongoing series begun in 1992 documenting the life, culture, and conditions of the Oglala Lakota people of Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Shining a light on the inequality faced by indigenous people in their own homeland and their extreme poverty in the wealthiest country on earth, John Willis has written about the inspiration he draws from their humility and kindness.
The confrontation between the U.S. Cavalry and Lakota Sioux at Wounded Knee Creek on the Pine Ridge Reservation on December 29, 1890, resulted in the deaths of around 300 Sioux men, women, and children. The last major battle of the 19th-century Indian Wars, the massacre marked the virtual end of Native American resistance to the expansionist United States. Like Deborah Bright’s photograph of a Civil War battlefield in which present-day beauty belies the violence that took place there, Willis’s image of this serene gravesite provokes questions about the emotions, losses, and deaths concealed in trauma-scarred landscapes.

Exhibition List

This object was included in the following exhibitions:

Contemplating the View: American Landscape Photographs Addison Gallery of American Art , 9/8/2018 - 3/3/2019

Portfolio List Click a portfolio name to view all the objects in that portfolio

This object is a member of the following portfolios:

Exhibitions: Contemplating the View: American Landscape Photographs

Your current search criteria is: Object is "The Mass Gravesite at Wounded Knee from the 1890 Massacre".

This site facilitates access to the art and artifact collections by providing digitally searchable records for thousands objects. The information on these pages is not definitive or comprehensive. We are regularly adding artworks and updating research online. We welcome your comments.