Elbridge Ayer Burbank (1858-1949)
Chief Geronimo Apache 1899, Pencil. 1946.
Harvard-Diggins Library, Harvard, Illinois.
Artist Elbridge Ayer Burbank spent his life painting portraits of Native Americans, such as Apache Chief Geronimo, pictured here. Burbank was the only artist ever to paint Chief Geronimo, and visited him many times throughout his travels. This is one of the pencil sketches he made for the British publication The Graphic.
Born in Harvard, Illinois, Burbank studied at the Academy of Design in Chicago, now the International Academy of Design and Technology. His uncle, Edward E Ayer, later commissioned him to paint Chief Geronimo, which directed him into his life’s work.
Unlike many other painters, he drew Native Americans in a realistic way, rather than create an exotic image the rest of America expected to see.
Over his lifetime he visited 128 different tribes, and completed over 1200 sketches and paintings of men, women, and children.
E.A. Burbank Timeline (2004); Burbank (1944)
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