The Unfinished War: The Battle of the Little Bighorn in Native American Art

The Battle of the Little Bighorn, known to many Plains Indian people as Greasy Grass, has long occupied a powerful place in the American imagination. Yet for generations, popular imagery has centered on a single narrative: Custer’s “Last Stand.” The Unfinished War: The Battle of the Little Bighorn in Native American Art offers a different lens – one rooted in Native testimony, memory, and visual history.

Presented in conjunction with the 150th anniversary of the battle, this exhibition highlights Native American perspectives through pictographic art, ledger drawings, muslin paintings, and contemporary works that challenge long-standing myths. Rather than reinforcing a single heroic image, Native artists documented the battle as witnesses and historians—recording multiple events across time and space, preserving stories for future generations, and asserting the truth of lived experience.

Historic works by artists such as Stephen Standing Bear, Amos Bad Heart Bull, and White Swan reveal how Native visual language carries history differently than Western conventions. These works do not collapse the battle into one symbolic moment; instead, they reflect the complexity of conflict, the continuity of community memory, and the responsibility of telling history accurately. Together, they bring viewers closer to the people who survived, remembered, and carried forward the meaning of this pivotal moment.

The exhibition also explores how later generations of Native artists revisited Greasy Grass—sometimes through critique, irony, and cultural reclamation—offering new ways to confront a story that remains unresolved in the national consciousness. The Unfinished War invites visitors to reconsider what has been repeated, what has been erased, and what Native art continues to make visible.