Nicholas Black Elk

In 2022, Goretti Fine Art was commissioned to create a spiritual portrait of Servant of God Nicholas Black Elk (ca. 1863-1950), an Oglala Lakota mystic whose cause for canonization was opened in 2017. Cousin to the legendary warrior Crazy Horse, Black Elk fought Custer at the Little Bighorn, toured Europe with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show, was involved in the Ghost Dance, and became one of his people’s most respected medicine men.

What many did not know until more recently is that Black Elk converted to Catholicism in 1904 and served as an energetic catechist and lay preacher during the 1910s and 1920s. He continued many Lakota religious practices, however, and devoted his final two decades to recovering, recording, and perpetuating his people’s traditional culture—efforts which brought him into intermittent conflict with the missionary priests on the reservation. Through it all, Black Elk was both haunted and motivated by a boyhood vision in which the elemental powers of the universe commissioned him to bring healing to his people and, through them, to the whole world.

George and Polly’s fascinating depiction of the revered holy man pays tribute to the depths of his spiritual insight as well as to the complexities of his religious identity. The rosary beads in his right hand commemorate his controversial acceptance of Christianity, while the pipe in his left evokes the authentically Lakota worldview in which that Christianity took root. The background, meanwhile, highlights certain aspects of Black Elk’s mystical experiences that have parallels in the visual symbolism of the Western Christian tradition. The overall effect powerfully evokes his dual allegiances, without implying a false equivalence or offering easy resolutions to the tensions inherent in his story.