The Scout

Cyrus Dallin first modeled The Scout in 1910, which became the basis for his heroic, ten-foot-sized version modeled in 1914. The artist entered the monumental cast into the 1915 Panama Pacific Exposition in San Francisco, where it won a gold medal. After the Exposition, The Scout was shown temporarily in Kansas City's Penn Valley Park where it received considerable acclaim and was purchased by the residents of the city, where it still stands today. The Gorham Foundry cast The Scout in three smaller sizes: approximately 8 inches high, 20 inches high, and the present size, about 30 inches high. At least 7 in the present scale were cast during the artist's lifetime and cast numbers 14-18 were cast by Gorham in the 1970s, including the present work.

The Scout is part of Dallin's renowned 'Indian Cycle' of sculpture, also including The Signal of Peace, The Medicine Man, The Protest and The Appeal to the Great Spirit, among others. For Dallin, the series provided a channel to utilize the preliminary studies that he made from visiting Buffalo Bill's camp at Neuilly, France while studying in Paris in 1888. Lorado Taft, a sculptor and Dallin's contemporary, wrote auspiciously: "Rodin used to tell us that his task was to find the heroic in the everyday actions. Mr. Dallin finds it without difficulty in his favorite subjects and our critics are enriched through his sympathetic interpretations." (as quoted in R.G. Francis, Cyrus E. Dallin: Let Justice Be Done, Springville, Utah, 1976, p. X)