Solon H. Borglum, born Ogden, UT - Indian Village, Plan of a Monument - n.d. - T-Shirt

A graphite pencil sketch on tan paper, this design shows a distant encampment of conical dwellings across an open plain, with a dense head study tucked into the upper left corner.

Visual Elements & Composition

Pale tan dominates the sheet, with pencil grey and light taupe appearing only in the faint strokes. The landscape is built from soft, loosely hatched lines and a few horizontal bands that sit low across the composition. A cluster of cone-shaped forms and small upright shapes gathers along a faint horizon, far back from the viewer. Near the centre, a standing figure and a few small animals are suggested with only a handful of marks. The strongest concentration of line sits in the upper left, where a head study is drawn with far more density than anything else on the page, and a smaller animal sketch appears at the lower left.

Meaning & Symbolism

The title identifies the sheet as a planning drawing for a proposed monument, and its sparse, exploratory marks show the artist testing how figures and dwellings would settle within a wide, open landscape. The contrast between the detailed head study and the faint village reveals where the attention was placed while the rest remained provisional. Solon Borglum (1868–1922) was an American sculptor and painter known for his animal sculptures and for large public monuments of the American West. Drawings like this one record the preparatory stage of that work, where close observation of the land and its inhabitants shaped designs later developed at larger scale.

Where the Sketch Meets the Shirt

A preparatory sketch rewards a close look, and a tee puts that sheet of tan paper in front of you at chest height, where the open horizon and the cluster of dwellings can be read at a glance. The quiet emptiness of the plain works well across a wide front panel, leaving the faint figures and the upper left head study to draw the eye in as you move.