Fritz Scholder Lithographs from the Collection of John Morey Maurice

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FRITZ SCHOLDER LITHOGRAPHS FROM THE COLLECTION OF JOHN MOREY MAURICE

JUNDT ART MUSEUM This publication

was funded by Kalispel Tribe of Indians

©Jundt Art Museum, Gonzaga University, Spokane, WA 99258-0001

• GONZAGA UNIVERSITY

AUGUST 15 - NOVEMBER 15,2008

Before Scholder, young Indian artists either made traditional art or left their Indian identity behind in order to be contemporary. The 1960s were a turbulent decade for the United States and for young people all across the country. It was the decade of the Beatles, civil rights demonstrations, and the war in Viet Narn. Young Indians were not immune to the dislocation and change taking place. Scholder demonstrated that an artist could be Indian and contemporary at the same time. During his five years at the AlAI Scholder was influenced as much by his students as they were influenced by him. In addition, Scholder exposed his students to a wide variety of painting styles and influences, ranging from the contained terror of Francis Bacon, the foremost English modernist; the dark paintings and prints of the great Spanish artist Francisco Goya; the pop art of Andy Warhol; the cubism of Picasso; and the Abstract Expressionist work of Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning. As he interacted and bonded with his students, Scholder came to the realization that "...there is a new Indian art emerging. It will take many forms and will be vital A merging of traditional subject matter with the contemporary idiom will give us a truer statement of the Indian."

"I call myself an American expressionist, one who celebrates life in paint and other media. I am most interested in gesture, color, and an honest use of material As far as subject matter, every serious artist has his own subject matter. It is very personal It has to do with his own life or a statement he wants to make about life."

Since Scholder had not been raised as a tribal Indian on a reservation, he came to his art with a unique perspective. With his first group of Indian paintings Scholder exploded onto the international contemporary art scene.

His imagery was strong, immediate, confrontational. and controversial. Of his first exhibitions Scholder later recalled with a smile, "News of the work spread like wildfire. I had to have armed guards at the shows' I had challenged and intimidated the non- ative, so-called 'Indian experts" in Santa Fe, and I had also angered Indian elders and traditionalists who didn't know what to do with me. The subject matter was loaded with images that had never been seen. But these weren't things I imagined; I saw them." The resulting furor over Scheider's works helped launch the New Indian Art Movement and placed the artist in the vanguard of the most challenging, interesting, and influential American artists in the second

EMERGENCE OF THE MATURE ARTIST When he arrived in Santa Fe, Scholder "vowed" that he would never paint the Indian. He observed that "The non-Indian had painted the subject as a noble savage, and the Indian painter had been caught in a tourist pleasing cliche." Instead he painted abstract studies of the surrounding country with its brilliant colored sky, mountains, arroyos, and mesas in much the same way as Peter Hurd and Georgia O'Keeffe.

Then on a winter evening early in 1967 Scholder reached a decision "I decided to paint an Indian.

Although I never called myself an Indian artist, it soon became evident that it was time for a new idiom in Indian painting." He felt that, "The American Indian artist must step out of the arena of curios into the world of fine objects and expressive painting."

For his Indian paintings Scholder brought together an extraordinary fusion of Abstract Expressionism, Surrealism, and Pop Art to portray his unique vision of the Southwestern scene and the Native experience.

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half of the 20th century Early in his career, he received support from the Rockefeller, Whitney, and Ford Foundations.

THE AMERICAN

Scholder and Tamarind's master printers This collaboration was celebrated in 1975 with a book published by the New York Graphic Society titled Fntz Scholder Lithographs.

INDIAN SERIES OF PAINTINGS AND LITHOGRAPHS

THE SMITHSONIAN

From the beginning Scholder pursued his work in series form. The images in the paintings and prints that Scholder created in his American Indian Series (1967 - 1985) were powerful, outrageous, and frequently confrontational.

During this incredibly productive period Scholder made hundreds of paintings and a smaller number of lithographs on Indian life and history "I work in a trance. I just wait to see what happens. It's truly a sensual activity. You can't make a mistake. If you don't like something you simply paint over it I paint until I can't go any further, until the painting defies me to go any further." He depicted soldier Indians on horseback; Indians wrapped in the American flag; Indians performing ceremonial dances; Indians cats' as well as dogs; an Indian sitting in a desolate Gallup, New Mexico bar holding a can of Coors beer; and a massacred Indian with his head expanding from the impact of the bullet that had just hit him.

INSTITUTE COLLABORATION

EXHIBITION

In 1972 the Smithsonian Institution mounted an exhibition which featured Scholder and T C. Cannon, a young Kiowa Indian who was one of his most talented students. The exhibition was titled Two American Painters Fritz Scholder and T C. Cannon. After the exhibition closed in Washington, D.C, it went on a US State Department tour in Europe where it was accompanied by the two artists. The Smithsonian show and subsequent European tour made Scholder and Cannon the two most famous Native American artists in the country. Unfortunately, Cannon's brilliant career as a painter was cut short in 1978 when he died in a car crash at the age of thirty-two.

THE ICONIC MASTER PAINTER The private Scholder was a shy, gentle, and introspective person. He recalled that as a small boy "I was real shy, and alii wanted to do was stay in my room and draw, so I wouldn't have to deal with people This, at the time, was difficult But in retrospect, I always knew what I had to be. There was never any question. It was all that I could do.

Scholder unmasked and utterly destroyed any number of Indian stereotypes. He proudly stated, "I have painted the Indian real, not red!" Despite his depiction of a tough Indian reality, Scholders works were not without humor. For example, he painted a massive Indian in full ceremonial dance regalia eating a strawberry ice cream cone. In a small lithograph he depicted a Crow Indian with the head of a crow.

Scholder made the following observation about himself: "I am a nonIndian Indian. I do not feel the pull of the dichotomy of two cultures.

However, I am aware of the incongruous nature of the two cultures."

THE TAMARIND

INSTITUTION

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In J970 the Tamarind Institute, one of the leading lithographic fine art printers in the country, moved its entire operation lock-stockand-barrel from Los Angeles to the campus of the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. After getting set up in its new home, Tamarind invited Scholder to be its first "artist in residence" and to create a set of lithograph prints in his American Indian Series. This residency established a long-term, ongoing working relationship between 5

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JJ, 2002, Scholder advised the graduates, "You must be yourself on purpose. First, find out who you are and fully accept it Fall in love with your life and live with finesse and manners. Be a role model for yourself, and many will be influenced. To truly keep something, you must give it away.... Reinvent yourself with every day. Each day can be a new adventure in your quest for truth."

Scholder was frequently asked how he saw himself as an artist follows are responses he gave through the years:

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"The painter is a quiet rebel involved in an act of love which produced an object for an unseen audience."

"The act of painting, like most human activity, is at best paradoxical. Why do I paint? The answer is obvious to the painter. One paints because one must" "The responsibility of the artist is to produce a unique visual experience for himself and the viewer. The artist must make the subject his own."

Plus, I was a rebel, right from the beginning If someone told me to do something, I'd do the opposite. So I was, in a way, a bad boy in school, and yet. because I was reserved and because of my talent. I was treated pretty nicely, I must say. I sold my first painting in grade school to a friend of mine for four dollars. And I sold my second painting to a grade school buddy for five dollars and have slowly worked my way up from there."

The adult Scholder reflected on his continued shyness in his polite, gentle manner. At the same time he thrived on and was energized by controversy. He enjoyed both his fame and his notoriety. He created and perpetuated for himself a flamboyant, larger-than-life public persona that served to protect his more private, inner person.

According to his second wife Ramona Scholder, "his approach to life was to gorge on life." One of his favorite photographs shows the artist with his Afghan dog, Dakota, standing alongside his vintage Rolls Royce in the high Arizona desert with a giant Saguaro cactus in the background.

"Fine art, if it's the highest form of human integrity, means self-integrity And when you're in that studio, you must do whatever you do completely for yourself. And you must be your own worst critic. What means that after you've done it. you must live with it, decide if it should leave the studio. Often I destroy the work, either at the moment. or right after I've done it. or days later, or years later. I still will go into the studio at night and destroy paintings, because they're mine."

Scholder ended his American Indian Series in the mid-J980s and went on to explore other themes and passions in his work. But it is the American Indian Series that brought him instantaneous fame and international recognition. And it is this series for which he is best remembered. It is through this series that Scholder captured all of the realistic aspects of contemporary Indian life.

Scholder considered himself to be reborn every day of his life. "I always wake up and say, 'Another good day.' I believe that one is a different person each day I believe you should have new adventures every day, meet new people, bring in new information. If you don't,

At a commencement address at the University of Oklahoma on May 7

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you're being bad to yourself, because we only have that day, we only have the moment, and it's up to us."

During his final years Scholder spent most of his time at his home and studio in Scottsdale, Arizona, with his third wife, Lisa Markgraf Scholder. He recognized that he was a public figure and that the public had a large claim on him. He spent a lot of time traveling, making public appearances, and teaching But at the same time he was a very private person who valued his privacy. Lisa Scholder explained, "He was very much in the public realm and owned by many in the public realm, but in private he conducted his life exactly as he wanted. 1cannot remember an occasion when people would just drop

by He would invite people, and he made time for them and made it meaningful. He never lost track of who he was; he never believed his own press, and for me that is the sign of greatness in a human - the willingness to share yourself and to be in the moment."

He was always intrigued by death both in life and in his art. He once stated, "Remember, life is short and death is long." His widow, Lisa Scholder observed that "he lived life with finesse and manners. He was fascinated by death but could not make it go away. He fully understood the fragility of life." Perhaps Scholder said it best in the he published in 1976 in a book titled Random Thoughts And Memories: I sometimes think of death When I am eating cornflakes In the afternoon It just kills me to think That someday I won't be able To eat cornflakes In the afternoon.

In 2000 Scholder began the long battle with the diabetes that ultimately took his life. Most years Scholder celebrated his birthday by painting a self-portrait. These self-portraits remain in his personal collection. In one of his last self-portraits Scholder depicted himself with an oxygen tank, a small pool of blood on the floor, and his cat.

Fritz Scholder died at his home in Scottsdale on February 10,2005.

Today, Fritz Scho.ders paintings and prints are exhibited allover the world, and many of his works are in the permanent collections of 9

major museums in the United States and elsewhere in the world.

In the fall of 2008 the Smithsonian Institution Museum of the American Indian will mount a major retrospective exhibition of Fritz Scholders entire body of work in simultaneous exhibitions in Washington, D.C. and New York City.

John Morey Maurice Spokane, Washington July 1,2008

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BI<ckskili Indiall (Second Statel, 1974, Lithograph. 30' x 32', Collection of John Morey Maurice Portrait of Fritz Scholder, 1976, Photo by Jack O'Grady Gallery, Chicago.lllinois Silake Dallcers alld Shadows, 1977,Oil on canvas, 68' x 80'.

Illdian with Featfter Fan, Lithograph, 1975,30' x 22", Collection of lohn Morey Maurice Illdian Horse and Rider, 1977.Oil on canvas, 68' x 80'.

Portrait of Fritz Scholder, 1973 artist-in-residence, Dartmouth College,

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