Untitled (Western Sunset with Teepees)

Provenance

Zaplin Lampert Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Private Collection, New Mexico
Sale, Santa Fe Art Auction, Santa Fe, New Mexico, November 8, 2025, lot 270

Exhibited

Zaplin Lampert Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico

Related Works

Moonlight, ca. 1886-1895, oil on canvas, 27 ¹⁄₁₆ x 37 ¹⁄₁₆ inches; The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Moonlight, Indian Encampment, ca. 1885-1889, oil on canvas, 27⅛ x 34⅛ inches; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.

Note

Blakelock traveled west beginning in 1869, observing Native American life and internalizing his vision of the surrounding landscape. Blakelock scholar, Norman Geske described his colorful open-sky landscapes as “skyscapes” that often “neither sunny nor dark, but hazy and lowering” but expansive and fully expressive of his imagination.[1] In this painting, the teepees are absorbed into the landscape, further enhancing the natural ambiance of the scene with its silence and the solitude underneath a brilliant sky.

This painting has been authenticated and catalogued by the University of Nebraska Inventory as NBI-1431, category II.

[1] Norman Geske, Beyond Madness: The Art of Ralph Albert Blakelock 1847-1919 (University of Nebraska Press, 2007), 40-41.