VIDEO: Brooks Joyner discusses the Perfect Recreations.

We regard Karl Bodmer's 1832 – 1834 original watercolors of the American Indian to be the most important, beautiful and compelling images of the Plains Indians. We are proud to offer the exclusive, first-ever archival reproductions of his original watercolors.

At the beginning of his American journey, Karl Bodmer was a 23-year old Swiss artist who could not have imagined the new world he found himself exploring. With a heightened sense of awareness, an extraordinary eye for detail and a great gift for rendering on paper everything he saw – Bodmer gave us powerful portraits of the indigenous American nobility.

Leader of the Mandan Buffalo Bull Society is the original watercolor painted by Bodmer on the spot in April, 1834. The full buffalo head mask was worn ceremonially and only by the bravest warriors and leaders of the society. Posed here for Bodmer's exhaustive observation and comprehensively detailed painting, this figure also appears in the dramatic ritual dancing depicted in our Perfect Recreation of the later aquatint Tableau 18, Bison-Dance of the Mandan Indians.

"Real Bodmers aren't for sale, but stunning re-creations are." The Omaha World-Herald praised our "high-resolution, painstakingly detailed reproductions of eight of Bodmer's most famous watercolors". Read the complete article

Framing your Bodmers