Henry Farny (American, 1847-1916) Gouache on Paper 

Yarns of a Summer Day
signed, dated, and artist's bull's-eye monogram, lower left
(sight) 11.25 x 15.75 in.
(with Closson's Gallery, Cincinnati frame) 19 x 23 in.
1894

LITERATURE

Baltzer, Charles. 1975. Catalog for the exhibition "Henry Farny", Indian Hill Historical Museum Association. Plate 76.

Carter, Denny T. Henry Farny; 1978. Watson-Guptill Publications, NY, NY. Plates frontispiece, pg. 35, also illustrated pg. 90.

EXHIBITED

Indian Hill Historical Museum Association, Cincinnati, OH. 1975.

Yarns of a Summer Day was executed at the height of Farny’s career in 1894. The summer before, at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago, he had exhibited several paintings and served as a member of the prestigious national jury charged with the task of selecting American art for the Fair. Then in the fall of 1894 General Nelson A. Miles (1839-1925) invited Farny to tour Fort Sill Military Reservation, Oklahoma, where he met the great Apache warrior and leader Geronimo, who was imprisoned there. A feeling of comradery ensued and Geronimo agreed to let Farny sketch him. This was Farny’s final trip West, although he continued to paint poetic western scenes replete with buffalo and Indians.

In its vibrant and sweeping view of the Plains, its meticulous brushwork in gouache, and with its images of numerous Indians going about their daily lives, Yarns of a Summer Day is one of the finest examples of Henry Farny’s paintings ever to pass through Cowan’s salesroom. While this work is not monumental in size (so few of Farny’s paintings were), it contains every element that made Henry Farny one of the most highly regarded artists of the American West during the 19th and early 20th century.

Unlike his most notable contemporaries, Charles Russell (1864-1926) and Frederic Remington (1861-1909), Farny usually portrayed Indians in an idyllic setting, rather than in the climactic moments of conflict between Indians and the whites pushing West. His work was reminiscent of a time when the inhabitants of the American West were undisturbed, either by homesteaders or government soldiers. Instead Farny was subtle in his narratives and any sense of hostility was often implied in a title, rather than overtly illustrated. It is in this vein that Yarns of a Summer Day is titled, suggesting a peaceful time, filled with typical Indian camp activities, such as smoking and talking under a vibrant blue sky.

During his travels West Farny observed that the glory days of Plains Indian life—charging after buffalo and enjoying summer in a tipi camp—were fading fast. However he quickly realized that collectors in the East hungrily yearned for his paintings illustrating this earlier period of Plains culture. In Henry Farny Paints the Far West (2007), Susan Labry Meyn perhaps discusses the historical context of
Farny’s paintings best:

By the time that Farny made his first trip West in 1881, the Indian people of the entire Great Plains region, from Texas into Canada, were clearly greatly impoverished, culturally as well as economically. These Native Americans had endured nearly a century of pernicious federal policy and more than forty years of punishing war with the U.S. military. The government’s objective was to either civilize or exterminate these proud and brave warriors.

The Indian story that Farny usually chose to tell reflected the lifeways of these Indians during the glorious and earlier days of traditional Plains life, when they had charged across the grasslands hunting buffalo prior to their confinement on remote reservations.(pg.37).

This painting was purchased directly from the artist and has descended in the same family until the present day. This is the first time it is being offered for sale. ">

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