Karl Bodmer: Travels in the Interior of North America
November 18- December 19, 1999
The nineteenth century aquatint engravings by the Swiss artist Karl Bodmer, on display in this exhibition, are
selected from the atlas, Travels in the Interior of North America, published in Europe between 1839 and
1843. Bodmer's aquatints constitute one of the earliest, most accurate and artistic visual records of the Indian
people and their culture.
This month-long exhibit was a collaboration between the Olin Art Gallery and the 1999-2000 Museum Studies Seminar,
taught in the Art and Art History Department. Growing out of general seminar readings focused in current museum
theory and criticism, we have sought in this exhibition to complement traditional museum methods with strategies
favoring interpretation and contextualization, while acknowledging the theoretical and historical problems of ethnographic
display and Native American representation. Contributing members of the class included: Wendy Littlepage, Sasha
Lourie, Emily Martin, Audrey Swanstrom and James Thompson. The project required each student to conduct extensive
research on their topics, select corresponding images, and author exhibition text.
Travels in the Interior of North America, and the other materials borrowed for this exhibition have been
lent by the Greenslade Special Collections and Archives, Olin and Chalmers Libraries, Kenyon College. We would
like to thank Christopher Barth, Carol Marshall and Jamie Peelle, who have cheerfully assisted us throughout our
preparation of this exhibition. Travels in the Interior of North America was donated to Kenyon College,
circa 1958, by the estate of the Reverend Eugene F. Bigler (1900).
