“Upper Missouri Indian Skull – Winter 1804–1805” by Richard Vernon Greeves is a haunting and reflective bronze sculpture that shifts the lens from portrait to artifact. Stark and unadorned, the work presents a human skull atop a towering vertical plinth, its gaze unblinking—confronting, not pleading. The piece references the Upper Missouri tribes during the brutal winter of 1804–1805, a time of profound vulnerability and change.

Rather than dramatize death, Greeves invites viewers to meditate on legacy, loss, and the thin veil between memory and myth. The elongated pedestal, textured like weather-worn earth, elevates the skull—transforming it from relic to monument. It’s not merely anatomical; it’s archaeological. A testimony in bronze to those whose stories were not written in journals but etched in survival.