"The Song of the Talking Wire"

The dark side of America's frontier historyThe 1904 painting depicts an Indian medicine man in the center of a snow-covered field leaning against a telegraph pole listening to the coded communications of a society whose relentless expansion over 400 years was on the verge of overwhelming its few remaining outposts.

Stylistically, "Talking Wire" is a wonderful opening for the 39 beautiful watercolor and gouache treatments of American Indians by Farny and the dozens of beautiful Rookwood vases and plaques depicting Indians in the exhibit.

Thematically, however, the pathos of "Talking Wire" is an exception in the great body of Farny's work.

The vast majority of the scenes he so skillfully paints present the American Indian nostalgically, the way that white society, and potential white buyers, preferred to imagine them.