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modern times, fountains and pergolas and outdoor architecture, to
which artistic scrolls and designs are added have been made of it.
Temporary figures have been erected at exibitions in which some form
of concrete has been used haphazard. But none of these was intended
or expected to be permanent.
Behind the building of the Black Hawk statue lies an interesting lit
tle story. A few years ago Mr. Taft was watching some workmen
build a concrete chimney at the Art Institute, Chicago, and there came
to him his great idea of the means for making an enduring statue.
With the process in mind, it was not long until an adequate subject
presented itself, For 15 years he has had his Summer home and stu
dio at Eagle s Nest Camp, the Summer seat of the Chicago art colonv.
Standing for the 100th time at the highest point of the cliff, he never
failed to remember that it was from here that Black Hawk was finally
driven out of Illinois. So he decided to bring back the famous Indian
chief, and now in concrete he again surveys his former domain.
Black Hawk and his tribes fought on the English side in the war of
1812. He saw sooner than anybody else that the whites would take all
the Indian’s happy huntings grounds from him. He tried everything
from war to treaties to check the whites’ advance. As he grew old he
became more attached to his home along the Rock River and fought
against removal to the Iowa reservation by the government. He even
tried living in peace with the whites, but he had achieved such a repu
tation that any depredation that any Indians committed were laid at his
tepee door.
Finally he and his people were driven accross the Mississippi by Uncle
Sam s soldiers. After that, as an old man, Black Hawk petitioned the
Government that he might come back and view his old domains on the
Rock River. Many members of the tribe were brought with him, and
suddenly there was panic among the whites. Whether it was inten
tional from the first on the part of the Indian or the outcome of suspic
ion, a war was precipitated. Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis
both fought with the whites, and Black Hawk was made a prisoner.
Now in concrete he again surveys his domain, with an air of “ im
mutable disdain,” as one artist puts it.
It is characteristic of Mr. Taft that when he went about what he hopes
will be his most enduring work in a material way, he started with as
little fuss as if it were a small matter. Silently and surely the work ad
vanced as befits in character the approach of an Indian. Even the
sculptor smiles at his work as if it were a conceit instead of the project
of a lifetime, and succeeds partly in hiding his great jov in the work.
“ I did not study any one type or race of of Indians,” said Mr. Taft.
“ It is a composite of the Foxes and the Sacs, the Sioux and Mohawks,