Returning to America in 1901 after his long sojourn abroad, Potter participated in the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. He spent the next three years working on commissioned bust portraits, the most famous of which is arguably his bust of Mark Twain, which has since been deemed the truest likeness of the writer.
Though he continued working on commissioned portraits, Potter’s interest remained focused on typology and cultural anthropology. His focus shifted at this point, however, from Islamic culture to a geographically closer culture – that of the Native American peoples. Between 1880 and 1903 new laws were passed in the United States that took the remaining land in the West previously allotted to Native American communities away from them permanently. The Supreme Court ruled that Native American consent was unnecessary.
These Native American cultures had already come to the attention of late nineteenth-century American artists, who tended to either demonize or romanticize them in their work. Frederic Remington is perhaps the best known of these artists. His paintings and sculpture primarily romanticized the West, while demonizing Native Americans.
While Potter’s captivation with Native Americans emerged contemporaneously to that of Remington, his interest appears to have grown out of his fascination with alternative concepts of spirituality rather that the political climate. During these later years of his career, Potter became increasingly attracted to mysticism, occultism, and other modes of spiritual exploration. He even recorded palm readings he received.
His interest in mysticism drew him to Native American ritualistic dances, such as the “Ghost Dance”, which was performed by the elders of a community. This ritualistic dance, which frightened so many white Americans at the time, fascinated Louis Potter. In fact, the artist proceeded to create a variety of sculpture depicting such spiritual dances as performed by Native Americans.
Not one to rely wholeheartedly on typology to construct his sculptural renderings, Potter traveled to the Pacific Northwest coast in 1905 to experience such ritualistic behavior himself. His journey westward led him to the Tlingit community, which is located along the southeast Alaskan coast. By the turn of the twentieth-century, the Tlingit people were politically and culturally threatened. As occupants of the recently acquired American territory of Alaska, they were subject to the same laws as were American Natives. Yet, Potter appears to have approached his subject somewhat objectively, imbuing his forms with dignity rather than demonizing them. The sculptures he created at this time are exceedingly expressive and tend to be described by scholars in terms of their mystical qualities.