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Crow Fair

Richard Throssel Native American
ca. 1910
Not on view
Returned to lender
This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.
By 1902, traditional dances and feasts were prohibited on the Crow reservation, and this image may record a group parading through a Crow Fair, an agricultural exposition that celebrated Native culture in a new context. Men show off their horses. On the left is an animal with a handprint on its shoulder, and in the center, a horse wears a bridle and attachment embroidered with Crow beadwork. Throssel photographed people in their own clothing, in contrast to many non-Native photographers of the period who often posed their subjects in studio settings or outdoors in romanticized scenes of earlier life and dress.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Crow Fair
  • Artist: Richard Throssel (Native American, Cree (adopted Crow), 1882–1933)
  • Date: ca. 1910
  • Geography: United States, Washington
  • Culture: Cree (adopted Crow)
  • Medium: Gelatin silver print
  • Classification: Photographs
  • Credit Line: Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego (2003.003.046)
  • Curatorial Department: The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing