Joseph Wright’s Indian Widow and its place in the histories of representing Indigenous American women in art with Dr Stephanie Pratt.

Please join us at this richly illustrated talk and take advantage of a unique opportunity to learn what will be, for most of us, fascinating new insights about one of the most valued treasures in our world-famous Joseph Wright collection.

Derby Museums are thrilled and honoured to be welcoming Dr. Stephanie Pratt – acclaimed art historian, consultant, scholar, author and member of the Dakota Nation – to help us look at Wright’s painting of The Indian Widow (1783 – 84) in ways few of us will ever have had opportunity to do before. Coming to the talk, will enable you to:

• Widen your understanding of art history with Dr. Pratt’s deep knowledge of key trends in portraiture and history painting in European art – from the seventeenth century to today – backed up by her thought-provoking selection of images, some familiar, many not. Also, this talk will look at examples of Indigenous American representations in contrast to the ways that Europeans have represented them.
• Look at the Museum’s portrait of an Indigenous American from an Indigenous American perspective.
• Journey back with her into the complex currents of Britain’s eighteenth-century imperial expansion and Romantic sensibility, when travel between the Widow’s homelands and Wright’s Derby was much slower than it is today… but when links between Indigenous American and British – even Derbyshire – people were more common. And higher profile.

While much of what you will learn is relevant to another painting in the Museum’s collection – the portrayal of an Indigenous American man in our work by Benjamin West – the main focus of this talk will be on the subject of Wright’s painting being an Indigenous American woman.

In Dr. Pratt’s words: “Wright’s portrayal of a grieving Indigenous woman reflects European fascination with the ‘noble savage’… simultaneously revealing deep ambivalence about colonial conquest and its human costs.” Taking us from earlier portrayals of Matoaka, better known to us as Pocahontas, to recent protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline across Indigenous People’s lands, and the ongoing #MMIW (Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women) movement, she helps us to reflect on how past visual culture has shaped – but is also being helpfully and determinedly challenged by – present day Indigenous People’s resistance and resurgence.

Be a witness to that cultural resurgence… Draw on Dr. Pratt’s unique combination of scholarship and lived experience… Be stirred into deeper and better-informed reflection… on shared histories, on the genius and times of Wright, and on two portrayals of Indigenous American people of which Derby Museum seeks to be a proud and respectful custodian.

About Dr Stephanie Pratt (Independent scholar and art historian)

Formerly Associate Professor (Reader) of Art History at Plymouth University, UK and now an independent scholar and cultural advisor, Stephanie is a member of the Dakota people and was the first Cultural Ambassador for the Crow Creek Dakota Tribal Council at Fort Thompson in South Dakota, USA. Currently, she is researching paintings of the ‘four continents’ held at Dunster Castle, National Trust, UK. Her book, American Indians in British Art, 1700-1840 (Oklahoma University Press, 2005) was the first study of its kind and she has published on a wide range of topics concerning Indigenous Americans’ representation in art and museums over the last 30 years.

This talk at Derby Museums was made possible by financial support from Geoffrey Mann, a Friend of the museum, in memory of Dr. J. Denise Wells and in honour of friends we too often forget.