The Standing Rock Portraits
FRANK BENNETT FISKE IS BEST KNOWN FOR HIS EARLY 20TH-CENTURY IMAGES OF SIOUX PEOPLE GOING ABOUT everyday life as well as sitting for studio portraits. Born in 1883 and raised among the Sioux of the Standing Rock agency on reservation lands bordering the Missouri River, he often photographed the neighbors and friends of his upbringing in and around Fort Yates, North Dakota.
His father was a soldier who had tried his hand at ranching but, defeated by drought, had taken work with the Army as a civilian wagon master and moved his family to Fort Yates. There Fiske was schooled at both the military post and the Indian boarding school. Summers spent on the water working as a cabin boy on riverboats led to an ambition to become a steamboat pilot. But after apprenticing with S.T. Fansler at the post photo studio and taking over for Fansler in 1900
