Cyrus Edwin Dallin (1861-1944),The Scout, 1910, bronze, 35 x36 inches. Brigham Young University Museum of Art, 1978.
Today we celebrate the birthday of Cyrus Edwin Dallin, born November 22, 1861. Best known in Utah for creating the Angel Moroni atop the Salt Lake Temple, Dallin was raised in Springville until he left at age 19 to pursue formal art training in Boston and Paris. He became renowned for his dignified sculptures of Native Americans—images informed by his upbringing near a tribe of Utes, with whom he often played as a child. In The Scout, a Sioux warrior astride his mount searches the landscape, both fully attuned to their surroundings. Dallin created a ten-foot high version of this piece for the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, which won a gold medal. It proved so popular that the residents of Kansas City collected money to purchase the statue as a tribute to the Indigenous tribes that once inhabited the region. It remains an iconic landmark of the city today. This work is currently on exhibition in Treasures from the Collection, through July 3, 2021.