Cronau Original Sketch of Mato-Sapa, The Black Bear

MATO-SAPA=THE BLACK BEAR, A MINNIKANOJU DAKOTA, 1881
Rudolf Cronau (1855-1939)
Graphite on artist's board
Signed and dated lower left: R. Cronau 29/9 81.
Inscribed lower left: Matosapa / Minnikanaju Dakota / Da Schwartz Bar./
Standing Rock N. Dakota
11 3/8 x 7 5/8 inches sheet
Provenance: The Artist, New York; Margaret Cronau Wunderlich, daughter of the artist ; and by descent.
Mato-Sapa - The Black Bear was one of the Warriors who accompanied Sitting Bull. It was drawn on September 29th 1881 at the Standing Rock Agency. Not much is known about him, but the profile portrait ? one of Cronau's first portraits made when Cronau first arrived at Standing Rock Reservation, reveals an extraordinary face. No one since Carl Bodmer was able to capture the features and character of his sitter, as did Cronau.
Born in Solington, Germany, in 1855, Rudolf Cronau was considered by his peers to be one of the leading "Special Correspondents" of his day; writing and illustrating his articles. Cronau studied at the Dusseldorf Academy, principally under Andreas Muller and later with Andreas Achenbach. After his studies, he was employed in Leipzig by its two most important weekly newspapers, Das Illustrirte Zeitung and Die Gartenlaube. Over the next decade, Cronau contributed to both newspapers and wrote numerous books on his travels.
Cronau "recognized, articulated, and helped to perpetuate a sense of affinity that had long been a part of many Germans' interests in American Indians. He captured the excitement and melancholy of first encounters that were often lost in the broader literature but characteristic of individual experience," (Penny 98).