Elbridge Ayer Burbank

Harvard, Illinois, native Elbridge Ayer Burbank studied at the Chicago Academy of Design (later the Art Institute of Chicago) in 1874 and got his first job illustrating landscapes along the Northern Pacific Railway for Northwest Illustrated Monthly. The job took him from Montana to Idaho and Washington, but after reaching the West Coast Burbank returned to Chicago briefly before traveling to Munich to study with Paul Nauen. He began his major body of work in 1897 when his uncle Edward E. Ayer, the first director of the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, commissioned him to paint a series of portraits of famous Native American leaders. Burbank famously painted Apache Chief Geronimo from life, the only artist known to do so. Burbank went on to paint the leaders of tribes from the Great Plains, Southwest, and Pacific Coast, including Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce and Lakota Chief Red Cloud. He is best-known for his collection of Native American portraits, and many of his images are the only visual record ever made of his subjects.