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©
Estate of Fritz Scholder
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In 1969, a Minnesota-born artist by the name of
Fritz Scholder painted a portrait he dubbed "Indian with Beer Can."
The image shows a stark figure in sunglasses and a cowboy hat, sitting
with his arms crossed and teeth bared before a can of Coors. Unlike
many studio paintings that came before it -- the ones that pictured
Native Americans as indomitable or mystic figures detached from
Whiter society -- Scholder's portrait was mundane, lower class,
uncomfortable. It didn't shy away from the taboo of alcoholism in
indigenous communities, nor did it cover up America's distaste for
acknowledging poverty and alienation in the Indian Nation.
"Indians in America are usually poor," Scholder remarked to
a newspaper a few years later, "sometimes derelicts outside the
value system, living in uncomfortable surroundings. We have really
been viewed as something other than human beings by the larger society.
The Indian of reality is a paradox -- a monster to himself and a
non-person to society."
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Fritz
Scholder, "American Portrait with Flag," 1979. Oil paint on
canvas; overall: 40 × 35 in. Courtesy of American Museum
of Western ArtThe Anschutz Collection / Photo courtesy
William J. O'Connor © Estate of Fritz Scholder.
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Back in the late '60s and '70s, Scholder's pop art drew attention
good and bad, and it continues to do so today. "It's still haunting;
it's still devastating seeing these white teeth, a distorted face
to suggest a skull," Comanche author Paul Chaat Smith explained
to NPR in 2008. "You can't see the figure's eyes, they're behind
sunglasses -- incredibly arresting and powerful work even today,
but back then it was extraordinary."
Part of the sensation surrounding Scholder's works boiled down
to the fact that the artist wrestled with his own Native American
heritage. Despite the fact that his paternal grandmother was a member
of the Luiseño tribe of Mission Indians, Scholder publicly
claimed that he wasn't American Indian and that he would never paint
American Indians. Some critics not-so-silently saw this as fraud.
Yet Scholder became most known for his "Indian" series, a collection
of portraits that rendered his subjects as conflicted rather than
stoic, familiar rather than mythic. Not long after he began teaching
at the Institute of American Indian Arts, his works openly explored
the contemporary identity of American Indians, forcing stereotypes
off the canvas and forging, rather reluctantly, what would arguably
become the basis for contemporary Native American art.
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Fritz
Scholder, "Indian at the Lake," 1977. Lithograph; overall:
22 × 32-1/4 in. Denver Art Museum: Gift of Dr. and Mrs.
Harold Dinken, 1979.159 © Estate of Fritz Scholder.
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Collector and Denver Art Museum patron Kent Logan elaborates:
"Despite his repeated denials that he was not an Indian and would
never paint Indians, the emotional intensity of these 1970s portraits
dismisses any notion that Fritz Scholder was not personally invested
in a protracted, tragic, and still unresolved Native American experience."
Scholder's works are set to go on view this fall at the Denver
Art Museum in an exhibition titled "Super Indian," drawn from the
painting "Super Indian No. 2." Covering the portraits he made between
1967 and 1980, the pieces reflect a time period colored by the rise
of the American Indian Movement (AIM) and the aftermath of the broader
civil rights movement. While pop art was sweeping the states --
and evidence of this can be seen in Scholder's figuration, reminiscent
of Philip Guston and Wayne Thiebaud -- sociopolitical art was taking
hold too.
"Scholder was not a protest painter," John P. Lukavic writes
in the exhibition's catalog. "He did not 'dig Red Power.'" But his
desire to break up stereotypes and urge Americans to confront an
un-romanticized portrait of American Indians was nothing if deliberate.
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Fritz
Scholder, "Super Indian No. 2," 1971. Oil paint on canvas;
overall: 90 × 60 in. Promised gift from Vicki and Kent
Logan to the Collection of the Denver Art Museum © Estate
of Fritz Scholder.
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Besides "Indian with Beer Can," Scholder painted Sioux chiefs
and Hopi dancers, but for every traditional scene there's a portrait
loaded with hidden meaning. Titles like "Mad Indian," "Monster Indian"
and "Insane Indian" hint as much. His bright color palettes morph
into abstracted bodies equipped with clenched jaws and clenched
fists, revealing subject matter both harrowing ("Indian Dying in
Nebraska") and tongue-in-cheek ("Hollywood Indian"). Operating under
a simple M.O. -- "Real not Red" -- he built a complex representation
of the 20th-century American Indian before he died in 2005, one
never free of controversy.
"Here is what Scholder's work forces me, and other Indian people
of a certain generation to remember," Paul Chaat Smith writes on
his blog. "That we used to have short hair and wear IHS glasses.
That we passed for white. That our grandparents were raised by the
army. That we drink. That we weren't always about tradition, that
most people we knew didn't care about it either, until not so long
ago when suddenly everyone did and then pretended that we always
had cared about it. That we often we hated ourselves, and sometimes
we still do. That life is ugly and beautiful, that monsters are
real. And that death is never far away."
In response, Scholder would probably have fallen back on his
typically cryptic but nonetheless powerful prerogative: I
felt it to be a compliment when I was told that I had destroyed
the traditional style of Indian art, for I was doing what I thought
had to be done.
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Fritz
Scholder, "American Portrait with One Eye," 1975. Acrylic
paint on canvas; overall: 80 × 68 in. Collection of
Vicki and Kent Logan. © Estate of Fritz Scholder.
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Fritz
Scholder, "Monster Indian," 1968. Oil paint on canvas; overall:
18 × 20 in. Collection of Anne and Loren Kieve\/ Photographer:
Randy Dodson. © Estate of Fritz Scholder.
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Fritz
Scholder, "Matinee Cowboy and Indian," 1978. Oil paint on
canvas; overall: 80 × 68 in. Promised gift from Vicki
and Kent Logan to the Collection of the Denver Art Museum.
© Estate of Fritz Scholder.
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Fritz
Scholder, "Mad Indian," 1968. Oil paint on canvas; overall:
71 × 60 in. Promised gift from Vicki and Kent Logan
to the Collection of the Denver Art Museum. © Estate
of Fritz Scholder.
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Fritz
Scholder. "Indian in Taos Pueblo," 1970. Oil paint on canvas;
overall: 65 × 70 in. Promised gift from Vicki and Kent
Logan to the Collection of the Denver Art Museum © Estate
of Fritz Scholder.
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Fritz
Scholder, "Insane Indian No. 26," 1972. Acrylic paint on canvas;
overall: 68 × 54 in. Promised gift from Vicki and Kent
Logan to the Collection of the Denver Art Museum © Estate
of Fritz Scholder.
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Fritz
Scholder, "Indian No. 1," 1967. Oil paint on canvas; overall:
20 × 18 in. Collection of Anne and Loren Kieve ©
Estate of Fritz Scholder.
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Fritz
Scholder, "Hollywood Indian," 1973. Acrylic paint on canvas;
overall: 68 × 54 in. Private collection. Photographer:
Jacquelyn Phillips © Estate of Fritz Scholder.
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Fritz
Scholder, "Seated Indian with Rifle (After Remington)," 1976.
Acrylic paint on canvas; overall: 40 × 30 in. Denver
Art Museum: Gift of Polly and Mark Addison, 2009.361 ©
Estate of Fritz Scholder.
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Fritz
Scholder, "Indian and Rhinoceros," 1968. Oil paint on canvas;
overall: 68 × 120 in. Collection of the National Museum
of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, 268066.000.
Photographer: Walter Larrimore, NMAI. © Estate of Fritz
Scholder.
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"Super Indian" is part of the Denver Museum of Art's "overall
initiative to expand the visibility of contemporary art by American
Indian artists." The exhibition, featuring 40 rarely seen paintings
and lithographs, will be on view from Oct. 4 to Jan. 17, 2016.
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