Indian with beaded sash

Artist Fritz Scholder (Native American, 1937-2005)

printer Tamarind Institute (American, 1960-)

Date1975

Mediumcolor lithograph

Dimensionsimage: 28 × 22 in. (71.1 × 55.9 cm)
sheet: 30 1/8 × 22 3/8 in. (76.5 × 56.8 cm)

Credit LinePermanent Collection Fund

Label TextBorn in Breckenridge, Minnesota in 1937, Fritz Scholder was an artist who initially eschewed painting the Native American experience. An early student of Oscar Howe, a notable artist of Yanktonai Dakota descent, Scholder then went on to study with Wayne Thiebaud at Sacramento State University. Other artists such as Francis Bacon, Leonard Baskin, and Willem de Kooning influenced Scholder’s artistic practice. It was not until he began teaching at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in 1964 that Scholder created his first paintings of Native Americans in response to the lack of representation of contemporary Native American lifestyles. Scholder’s dynamic compositions featuring bold colors and expressive brushwork that blended figurative, abstraction, and Pop Art brought him mainstream recognition. By 1969, the artist left the IAIA to pursue a full-time career as an artist. At that time, he expanded his practice to include photography, printmaking, and sculpture. A 1970 invitation to the Tamarind Institute printshop introduced him to printmaking and resulted in a 14-year partnership. Indian with beaded sash is one of those series of prints created during his years working with Tamarind. Portraits like this were controversial within and outside the Native American community, with some seeing his depictions of Native peoples as reifying European and American ideals of Native American life. Regardless, Scholder's paintings subverted Native American stereotypes such as “the noble savage,” and instead shed light on the lasting traumas and daily realities affecting Native Americans such as alcoholism, displacement, and unemployment. As he was one-fourth Luiseno and German, Scholder did not consider himself “fully Native.” Scholder created images that critiqued Western and non-Native ideas of Native Americans. He embraced the paradox of emotions his works instilled and saw them as a way to draw people in. An irony especially, in light of this depiction of his Indian with beaded sash, which at first glance could be perceived as a stereotype of an Indian persona. However, portraits like these are larger-than-life representations of Native people; perhaps, alluding to society’s inability to comprehend and appreciate Native American contributions and experiences fully. Although Scholder received wide national acclaim, he did not want to be considered a proponent of the New American Indian Art Movement. Nonetheless, Scholder influenced generations of young Native American artists. In 1980, Scholder stopped painting Native American portraits and life, instead focusing on depicting his travels and other interests such as mythology, death, and the afterlife until he died in 2008.

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