The title “Coming of the White Man” after 1850 held no irony, only the silent respect of what Andrew Jackson Democrats called manifest destiny, later defined as missionary duty to expand and control western lands, to learn the Indians, to fence the fields, to shoot the buffalo, to whip the Spanish and scatter the English. Countless paintings, etchings, poems, essays used this title.
Native peoples, conceived of as mysterious, dangerous and ignorant by white pioneers and their artists, were often depicted in artwork of the time as stunned, entranced, or thrilled by the invasion of covered wagons. Later, when what we now call genocide began to sink in to the white consciousness, images of Native people transformed to defeated warriors, beautiful squaws, vast landscapes overwhelming tiny teepees, and later again, with photography, severe portraits of alien and rough strangers.
Now, secluded in a isolated section of Washington Park, this fantastic artwork Coming of the White Man steps out of the 19th Century time machine. For decades it has been kept off the track of tourists and acts as a rendezvous for the West Hills bottle gang. A bit of a treasure hunt? Go to 25th and Burnside and climb all the stairs!
Considering its over 100 years old and terrifically politically incorrect (our irony, the figures look toward the U of Portland statue three miles away, of Clark and York, with some traitorous guide), The Coming of the White man looks pretty good. Someone at sometime broke off the branch one of the figures held, and it could use a routine cleaning and waxing. The craftwork is excellent, quite first rate anywhere for that time.
From Portland Parks & Recreation – “Coming of the White Man was given to the City by the family of David P. Thompson, an early Portland mayor and donor of the Elk statue downtown in the Plaza Blocks. This bronze statue, sculpted by H. A. MacNeil and completed in 1904, features two Native Americans. Facing eastward, they look down upon the route that ox teams trudged bringing settlers to this part of the country. The older of the two is said to be Chief Multnomah of the Multnomah people.” How romantic.
From askart.com, “Born in Massachusetts in 1866, Hermon Atkins MacNeil became a well-known sculptor of Indian subjects, commemorative works and medals including the designing of the medal of award for the 1915 Pan American Exposition in San Francisco and the quarter dollar for the United States government. He was also a teacher. His sculptures are in many locations including the Supreme Court Building in Washington DC, the State Capitol Buildings in Connecticut and Missouri, and the City Park in Portland, Oregon. He died in College Point, NY in 1947.”
From nealauction.com “Trained in Paris at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and Academie Julin, Hermon A. MacNeil became renowned for his sculptures of Native American Indians and monumental works. MacNeil distinguished career including teaching art at Cornell University and the Art Institute of Chicago, winning the Rinehart Roman Scholarship and Silver Medal at the 1900 Paris Exposition, exhibiting at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition, and designing the United States quarter.”
The Standing Liberty Quarter, by MacNeil, in circulation from 1916 – 1930. Nice.
McNeil also rendered the William McKinley Memorial at the capitol in Columbus, Ohio, in 1906.
Sculptors reworked ideas and artwork, often reproducing successful models in smaller forms – imagine the public sculpture was a marketing device for a smaller, home-sized version.
Here’s a version the Met in NYC owns. I think there are probably a lot of these floating around.
MacNeil was attracted to images of those suffering, or about to suffer. Or his audience was. I don’t know.
Here a home-sized version of his The Slave Block.
Great Portland tourist pictures – again, your virtual visit is more appreciated.
November 28, 2005 at 6:37 pm
That sculpture just slays me… its so unbelievely politically incorrect it seems fresher than it ought to.
I like where it is sited… a little out of the way… I dont want it removed… I think it reminds us why this sort of thing is so wrong. I dont want our public sculpture pasturized to suit present tastes.
November 29, 2005 at 5:45 pm
I was thinking about the isolation when I posted this. I won’t give out the location for two reasons – one, it’s fun to seek, but 2, it’s prime for vandalism and would be terribly expensive to clean / fix.
Tho the content is weird by today’s ideals, the form is quite excellent. And it’s in fairly good condition, considering it has been sitting there for 100 years. One of the city’s best artworks.
February 12, 2007 at 7:19 am
I finally found Coming of the White Man last weekend. It was well worth the hunt. Once you find it you wonder how you could have missed it.
This is one of the finest sculptures in Portland PC be damned. The setting is perfect. I even like the chunk of granite it sits on. I didn’t have the great contrasting fall colors in the background and had to do a lot of airbrushing to create a decent photograph. This give me another good reason for a return visit.
September 14, 2008 at 6:42 pm
While looking at the PPR website, I came across this quote from the dedication ceremony for this statue in 1904, “The historic significance of this group is the white man’s invasion of the wilderness, home of the Indians. This monument will probably stand here when the race of people whom it represents has become extinct, and will describe better than any book, the form, features, and chief characteristics of the original inhabitants of this country.” Obviously still ignorant, but surprisingly ambivalent about the Oregonian conquest mythology.
October 19, 2008 at 1:51 am
I have seen a sculpture from this extrodinary sculptor and have never investigated its significance its two European explorers and an Indian guide nobody from the neighborhood not even school teachers (there are two schools next to statue) know its symblizm when i realized what the history and the great importance to my city yet found no blogs on this particular sculpture marshal boulevard
March 30, 2009 at 1:12 am
i visited the park in 9/08 and enjoyed it very much also everybody was very interesting history by are guild.i do have a question i bought a plate in fla this winter wwhich is marked f.w.a7 c england that is called coming of the white man city park ,portland,ore it has the city hall , mt. hood ,post office portland hotel on it could you give me any history on it and would it be of any value to a musem at the park ?
friendly pataskala
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May 18, 2010 at 3:14 am
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May 18, 2010 at 9:25 pm
I appreciate the old posts here, especially: “extraordinary sculputor” and “unbelievely politically incorrect.”
I am in South Dakota, not Portland. But this hidden party of 2 scouts that illude the local Portlanders seems a current irony. Perhaps they have also illuded, or possibly outlived, the arrogance of ‘manifest destiny” and the speculalations of ‘extinction.’
Could MacNeil still be reminding us how close every current culture may be to extinction?
Life is precious and fragile, handle with reverence.
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November 14, 2012 at 1:01 pm
[…] via cartoons. In Mister Tourist admires “The Coming of the White Man” at the City Park. Click here to see the actual statue, and explanation of it — it apparently is still in the park, with […]
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September 18, 2014 at 8:31 pm
I have a postcard Nov. 12 1912, 102 years old of the statue, it is in tress and some type of odd looking building in the back ground on right hand side
March 3, 2017 at 3:35 am
Why are people calling the artwork excellent “for its time”? It dates from 1905, thousands of years after the masterpieces of Ancient Greece.
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Coming of the White Man | Portland Public Art
January 10, 2023 at 1:16 am
[…] in a warehouse full of culturally inappropriate statues somewhere. But you can see, from this post, “The Coming of the White Man” is still on display in Portland’s Washington Park, […]