Pere Marquette and the Indians

German artist Wilhelm Lamprecht studied at Munich’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts before settling in Cincinnati, Ohio. Lamprecht spent much of his career painting church frescoes across the Midwest and East Coast. Two local examples of these frescoes may be viewed at St. Francis of Assisi Church on 4th Street in Milwaukee. In 1967 Lamprecht co-founded the Institute of Catholic Art (or Christian Art Society). Two years later he painted Père Marquette and the Indians for a fundraiser benefiting impoverished artists who were friends of the Art Society.

The painting recalls the year 1673, when Father Jacques Marquette—a Jesuit missionary and explorer after whom Marquette University is named—was in the midst of an expedition in the Great Lakes and Mississippi River system. The French Jesuit, having been assigned to conduct missionary work in the area, lived among various Great Lakes tribes for nine years. In the painting Marquette is depicted sharing a canoe with two Miami Indian guides, who have led him from the Fox River to the Wisconsin River and eventually to the Mississippi River. A female figure on the far left of the composition is wrapped in a long scarf and holds a small child, evoking traditional depictions of the Virgin Mary. The painting presents a vision of reciprocity and dialogue among the Indigenous Peoples of the Great Lakes and Mississippi River Valley, and Father Marquette.

A detail from this painting forms the lower half of Marquette University’s seal.