The Indigenous-Modernist Intersection
Contemporary Native American Paintings and Prints August 7-September 1, 2015
Photograph dated 1894 of Caddo family butchering steer probably issued to family at the Anadarko Agency, Oklahoma. Photo by Irwin and Mankins, from Archives and Manuscripts Division, Oklahoma Historical Society.
During the 1960s and 70s, while the United States was simultaneously
waging war in Vietnam and sending men to the Moon, a number of emerging Native American artists began to fuse indigenous themes with modernist techniques, which culminated in an aesthetic hybrid of distinct originality. Unlike earlier western painters who had sought to represent an idealized version of tribal life, this new generation of artists confronted head on the experience of being an American Indian in contemporary society with all of its inherent problems and contradictions. The unique result was the depiction of iconic imagery by means of an avant-garde painterly vocabulary, producing works whose rawness and directness pack a visual punch. This is most evident in the imposing portrait paintings by Fritz Scholder (1937-2005), John Nieto (born 1936), and Kevin Red Star (born 1943), which incorporate a wide range of stylistic devices culled from European and American modernism. In Scholder’s Indian Portrait No. 3, for example, Paul Gauguin’s perspectival flatness and Henri Matisse’s Fauvist palette are combined with the pictorial language of Andy Warhol’s Pop Art to create a commanding composition of resonating power and beauty.
In the historically significant painting Beef Issue at Fort Sill by T. C. Cannon (1946-1978), who was a student of Scholder’s but whose career was tragically cut short by an automobile accident at the young age of thirty-one, the chromatic intensity is turned up even higher. Concerning the subject matter therein, Cannon pulls no punches in his graphic rendering of the slaughtering of a steer by two women for communal meat rationing. Here we have a metaphorically rich socio-political statement as regards the continual interference in and control of American Indian life on the reservation by the Federal Government. Cannon seems to be conveying to us that nothing has changed in effect since the tragic displacement in the mid to late 1800s of native populations from their ancestral lands. Scholder’s and Cannon’s mastery of form and color is equally on display in an exquisite set of works on paper included in the exhibition. In Scholder’s bold and striking prints, Native American chiefs and warriors clad in traditional attire are elevated to archetypal status; while in Cannon’s detailed and nuanced woodcuts, family members are realistically portrayed in the context of everyday living. Both artists poignantly remind us, however, by way of the clashing bicultural iconography in their compositions that the indigenous-modernist intersection is never devoid of confrontation.
T.C. Cannon (1946-1978)
Beef Issue at Fort Sill 1973 Acrylic on canvas 56 x 71.5 inches 57 x 72 inches framed
Provenance: Private Collection, Santa Fe, NM, 1993, purchased through Zaplin Lampert Gallery, Santa Fe, NM Aberbach Fine Art, New York, NY, 1992 Exhibition History: Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Cody, WY, March-April, 1981 National Cowboy Hall of Fame, Oklahoma City, OK, August, 1990-April 1991 Zaplin Lampert Gallery, Santa Fe, 1993
T.C. Cannon (1946-1978)
Buffalo Caboose No. 2
1974 Oil and mixed media on canvas Titled and dated verso 46 x 40 inches 47 x 41 inches NFS
T.C. Cannon (1946-1978)
Turn of the Century Dandy c. 1975 Woodcut, ed. 68/200 15 x 11.5 inches 22.25 x 18.75 inches framed Signed lower right Provenance: Private Collection, Santa Fe, NM
grandmother, gestating father and the washita river runs ribbon like on some specific blue-purple cloud of some intensely burning theology, beyond and above the river and hills, muddy and red both, gilded precious in eye and heart..... strides a moving angelus. a woman of sun and blood a lady of willow arbor modesty a woman of sun and plum blossoms a lady of small hands and big skies a woman of the eternal breath of life a maiden of the eternal circle a specific angelus.... of some intensely burning theology.
T.C. Cannon (1946-1978)
Grandmother Gestating Father and the Washita River Runs Ribbon Like c.1975 Woodcut, ed. 231/999 15 x 11.5 inches 22.25 x 18.75 inches framed Signed lower right
Provenance: Private Collection, Santa Fe, NM
in the wonderful world of opera i have been without a viking helmet all my life... as i have been without an aria for seven months in a pitiful rapture unheeded except by the mosty observing eye in the wonderful world of opera i am a stagehand in corduroys and leather hat with a sheaf of literature well-read between acts and semi-smile when stage is dark in the wonderful world of opera i am the recluse dwarf who dies just as rossini's tuscan hero prevails unscathed from his lone scuffle with the forces of villainy in the wonderful world of opera no one remembers me now as no one saw me then and i have retired from that wonderful world of opera i am alone am theo nly refugee the only partisan the last soldier to remain alive. my heroine still sings in the forest east of here.
T.C. Cannon (1946-1978)
A Remembered Muse
c.1975 Woodcut, ed. 61/200 15 x 11.5 inches 22.25 x 18.75 inches framed Signed lower right Provenance: Private Collection, Santa Fe, NM
Fritz Scholder (1937-2005)
Indian Portrait (Mohawk)
1975 Acrylic on canvas 80 x 68 inches Signed upper right, titled and dated verso Provenance: Private Collection, Santa Fe, NM
Fritz Scholder (1937-2005)
Study for Indian with Shield
1976 Acrylic on canvas 18 x 22 inches Signed upper right, titled and dated verso Provenance: Private Collection, Santa Fe, NM
Fritz Scholder (1937-2005)
Laughing Dog After Traube
1977 Acrylic on canvas 18 x 22 inches Signed lower left, titled and dated “11/13/77” verso Provenance: Private Collection, Santa Fe, NM
Fritz Scholder (1937-2005)
Indian with Red Button Lithograph, ed. 66/100 22 x 30 inches 25.25 x 32 inches framed Signed lower right
Provenance: Private Collection, Santa Fe, NM
Fritz Scholder (1937-2005)
American Indian No. 4 1972 Lithograph, ed. 79/100 30 x 22 inches 33 x 25 inches framed Signed lower right
Provenance: Private Collection, Santa Fe, NM
Fritz Scholder (1937-2005)
Indian in Spotlight
Lithograph, ed. 17/20 22.5 x 20 inches 28 x 22.25 inches framed Signed lower right Provenance: Private Collection, Santa Fe, NM
Fritz Scholder (1937-2005)
Sioux
Etching, ed. 30/75 15 x 11 inches 21.25 x 18.25 inches framed Signed lower right Provenance: Private Collection, Santa Fe, NM
Fritz Scholder (1937-2005)
Pawnee
Etching, ed. 30/75 15 x 11 inches 21.25 x 18.25 inches framed Signed lower right Provenance: Private Collection, Santa Fe, NM
Fritz Scholder (1937-2005)
Kachina
Etching, ed. 21/30 15 x 11 inches 21.25 x 18.25 inches framed Signed lower right Provenance: Private Collection, Santa Fe, NM
Fritz Scholder (1937-2005)
Hopi
Etching, ed. 30/75 15 x 11 inches 21.25 x 18.5 inches framed Signed lower right Provenance: Private Collection, Santa Fe, NM
Fritz Scholder (1937-2005)
Buffalo Artist
Etching, ed. 13/22 15 x 11 inches 22.5 x 18.5 inches framed Signed lower right Provenance: Private Collection, Santa Fe, NM
Earl Biss (1947-1998)
Untitled (Indian Dancers) Oil on canvas 25 x 37.5 inches 25.5 x 38 inches framed Signed upper right
Provenance: Private Collection, Santa Fe, NM
John Nieto (b. 1936)
Eagle Feather Fan
Acrylic on canvas 71.75 x 48 inches 73.25 x 49.5 inches framed Signed lower right, titled verso Provenance: Private Collection, Santa Fe, NM
Kevin Red Star (b. 1943)
Indian Portrait
Oil on canvas 24 x 18 inches 25.5 x 19.5 inches framed Signed lower right, titled verso Provenance: Private Collection, Santa Fe, NM
Tom Palmore (b. 1945)
Buffalo and Flag
Acrylic and oil on canvas 85 x 108 inches Provenance: Private Collection, Santa Fe, NM
Navajo
Classic Poncho Serape or Slave Blanket
ca. 1850 Churro wool, natural dyes 89 x 44 inches Provenance: Ex- Robert Byington Mitchell (1823-1882). Mitchell was a brigadier general in the Union Army during the American Civil War; he served as Governor of New Mexico Territory from 1866 to 1869. Ex- John Frederick Huckel (1864-1936). Huckel was co-founder and director of the Fred Harvey Company’s Indian Department in Albuquerque. Huckel acquired the poncho serape from Mitchell’s estate between 1901 and 1910. Ex- George H. Lorimer 1867-1937). Lorimer, an American journalist and author, was best known as editor-in-chief of The Saturday Evening Post. Lorimer acquired the poncho serape from the Fred Harvey Company on March 7, 1937, six month’s before Lorimer’s death.
Navajo
Classic Bayeta Serape with Meander Border
ca. 1860 Churro wool, natural dyes 57 x 37 inches
Northern New Mexico
Classic Rio Grande Serape with Eighty-one serrated designs ca. 1860 Wool, natural dyes 89 x 48 inches
Navajo
Classic Third Phase Chief’s Blanket with Small Diamonds ca. 1860 Wool, natural dyes 57 x 50 inches
Northern New Mexico
Classic Banded Saltillo Serape ca. 1860 Wool, natural dyes 99 x 61 inches