Ghost Dance (The Vision of Life)

Seattle, Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, June 1–Oct. 16, 1909, cat. 358, as Ghost Dance. Chicago, Moulton & Ricketts Galleries, Loan Exhibition of Important Works by George Inness, Alexander Wyant, Ralph Blakelock, Mar. 10–22, 1913, pl. 52, as The Ghost Dance. Art Institute of Chicago, Friends of American Art, Loan Exhibition of American Paintings, Jan. 8–28, 1914, cat. 99. Chicago, Galleries of Henry Reinhardt & Son, Loan Exhibition of Paintings by Ralph Albert Blakelock, Apr. 24–May 6, 1916, cat. 17. Art Institute of Chicago, A Century of Progress: Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture, June 1–Nov. 1, 1933, cat. 435. Pittsburgh, Carnegie Institute, Survey of American Painting, Oct. 24–Dec. 15, 1940, cat. IL, Durand Art Institute, Lake Forest College, A Century of American Painting: Masterpieces Loaned by The Art Institute of Chicago, June 10–16, 1957, no. 12. Art Institute of Chicago, Two Centuries of American Art, 1750-1950, Oct. 1, 1959–Jan. 10, 1960, no cat. [downloadable checklist available]. Springfield, Illinois State Museum, Nineteenth–Century American Paintings: a Collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, Mar. 5–Apr. 24, 1966; Iowa, Davenport Municipal Art Gallery, May 19–June 5, 1966; Muscatine, Iowa, Laura Musser Art Gallery and Museum, July 24–Oct. 2, 1966; Peoria, Illinois, Lakeview Center for the Arts and Sciences, Nov. 30, 1966–Jan. 8, 1967. The Art Galleries, University of California Santa Barbara, The Enigma of Ralph A. Blakelock, Jan. 7–Feb. 2, 1969; San Francisco, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, Feb. 15–Mar. 16, 1969; Phoenix Art Museum, Mar. 24–Apr. 27, 1969; Huntington, New York, the Heckscher Museum, May 17–June 23, 1969, cat. 88. Grey Art Gallery, New York University, American Painting & Symbolist Aesthetics, Jan. 20–Mar. 2, 1980. Art Institute of Chicago, Window on the West: Chicago and the Art of the New Frontier, 1890–1940, June 28–Oct. 13, 2003. Lincoln, Nebraska, Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, The Unknown Blakelock, Jan. 29–Aug. 24, 2008; New York, National Academy of Design, Sept. 25, 2008–Jan. 4, 2009 (Lincoln only). Detroit Institute of Art, Dance! American Art, 1830–1960, Mar. 20–June 12, 2016, cat. 21; Denver Art Museum, July 10–Oct. 9, 2016; AK, Bentonville, Crystal Bridges Museum of Art, Oct. 22, 2016–Jan. 16, 2017.

James William Pattison, "The Art of Blakelock," Fine Arts Journal 27, no. 4 (Oct. 1912): 641 (ill.). Elliott Daingerfield, "Ralph Albert Blakelock," Art in America 2 (Dec. 1913): 57, fig. 1 (ill.). Elliott Daingerfield, Ralph Albert Blakelock (New York, 1914). Homer Saint-Gaudens, ed., Survey of American Painting, exh. cat. (Carnegie Institute, Department of Fine Arts, 1940), n.p., cat. Elizabeth Tebow, "Ralph Blakelock's The Vision of Life/Ghost Dance: A Hidden Chronicle," The Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 16, 2 (1990), 167–172. Abraham A. Davidson, Ralph Albert Blakelock (Pennsylvania State Universtiy Press, 1996). Glyn Vincent, The Unknown Night: The Madness and Genius of R.A. Blakelock, An American Painter (Grove Press, 2003). Norman A. Geske, Beyond the Madness: The Art of Ralph Blakelock, 1847–1919 (University of Nebraska Press, 2007), 38, fig. 31 (ill.). Jane Dini, Dance: American Art, 1830–1960, exh. cat. (Detroit Institute of Arts, 2016), cat. 21.