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In 1880, a delegation of Apsáalooke (Crow) chiefs and leaders traveled to Washington, D.C., to discuss a treaty regarding the boundaries of the Crow Indian Reservation, and had their portraits made while there. The original portraits were taken by Charles Milton Bell, a studio photographer working in the Federal City in the late 1800s.

In Wendy Red Star’s series, according to the Birmingham Museum of Art, she has annotated the scanned photographs, identifying the names of the sitters and details about their lives. Through extensive research, Red Star provides commentary on their “status, accomplishments, relationships, and the symbolic significance of their regalia, undermining the anonymity of the original portraits.”