The Expedition
In 1833, a German prince and a Swiss artist stepped aboard a paddle steamer on the Missouri River in St Louis, and headed upstream, bound for parts unknown.

The two men, Prince Maximilian and Karl Bodmer, had just embarked on one of the most remarkable - and celebrated - voyages of exploration in the history of the American West.

The Missouri was still untamed, clogged with snags and laced with treacherous sandbanks and rapids. Maximilian and Bodmer penetrated a true wilderness, thousands of square miles inhabited only by the aboriginal peoples - the Mandan, Hidatsa, Sloux. Cree, Omaha, Crow and Blackfeet Indians.

They soon burst upon the Great Plains, passing through what would become the states of Kansas, Iowa and Nebraska, and then they pushed on deep into the vast unknown areas that would become North and South Dakota.

Nearly two thousand miles upriver, they came to the junction of the Yellowstone and the Missouri. Here they were forced to abandon the steamer, and continued on into Montana in a little keelboat called the 'Flora'. They rowed it, sailed it, and eventually dragged it upstream, towards the great uplift of the Rocky Mountains.

Everywhere they went, the Indian tribes welcomed them.

Maximilian questioned them closely about their beliefs and customs and took extensive notes. He learned as much as he could of their languages. He made large collections of plants and animals, many of them new to science, and he surveyed the region's topography and geology.

Bodmer meanwhile painted - gorgeous, richly detailed watercolours. Working under extreme conditions, sometimes with his watercolour paints freezing, in temperatures that dropped to thirty below zero, he made an unsurpassed record of the landscapes and the Indians of North America.

He captured in vivid colour their splendid ceremonies. their dances and sacred songs. He painted thrilling buffalo and grizzly hunts, and recorded their battles with rival tribes.

He painted portraits of chiefs, warriors, and medicine men today considered by rnany to be the greatest portraits ever made of Native Americans. These Indian leaders are imbued with immense dignity and they radiate the strength and pride of their peoples.

So extraordinary were his portraits that the Indians themselves regarded them as sacred. They carried Bodmer's pictures of themselves into battle, believing the images afforded them supernatural protection.

He depicted, as no one since, the vast landscapes of the West untouched by civilisation: the endless plains covered with buffalo, the tall grass prairies, the villages of tipis under vast skies, the Rocky Mountains rising in the blue distance.

Thirteen months later Maximilian and Bodmer returned to civilisation, exhausted from privation and cold.

And yet, Prince Maximilian managed to bring back a peerless collection of plant specimens, animals, rocks and minerals, as well as partial dictionaries of 29 Indian languages and thousands of pages of notes on the customs and rituals of tribes they had met.

Karl Bodmer returned with something even greater: several hundred extraordinary watercolour paintings, today considered to be the finest artistic record of the early West ever made. Bodmer had captured, with accuracy and dignity, a way of life that had existed unchanged for centuries.

Back in Europe they collaborated on their famous work, 'Travels in the Interior of North America 1832-34'. Included with the work were 81 aquatint engravings of Bodmer's finest watercolours.

The engraving of the copper and steel plates was carefully directed by Bodmer himself. The first edition was printed in Paris between 1839 and 1843. Interestingly enough, John James Audubon was an early subscriber to this edition, and it was one of his most treasured possessions.

After the edition was issued, the original engraving plates were soon forgotten, but miraculously they survived and were rediscovered in the vaults of Castle Wied in Germany. The Joslyn Art Museum of Omaha, Nebraska is very fortunate to have been able to acquire these priceless plates as well as Bodmer's extraordinary watercolours.

Not long ago the Joslyn Art Museum decided to undertake the historic second printing from all 81 of these original plates, and today is ready to announce the new edition of BODMER'S AMERICA.

Alecto Historical Editions