Original Ink Drawing “Indian with Braid” [R]

Fritz Scholder (1937-2005) was a famous and influential painter, printmaker, fetish maker and sculptor.  A natural talent with a singular compositional voice, he worked confidently and comfortably within a variety of mediums.  Scholder, who was one-quarter Luiseño Indian, had little interest in Native American art.  As an abstract painter, he had little interest in the traditional flat-style works that were being made and sold by Native artists.  Anglo-Americans’ dramatic and idealized portrayals of Native peoples struck him as trite, uninspired, and unrealistic.  At one point, early in his career, he made a vow never to “paint the Indian.”

Scholder found himself immersed in Native culture when he moved to Santa Fe in 1964 to teach at the newly-established Institute of American Indian Art.  He attended pueblo ceremonies and was inspired by the efforts of his students.  He even began collecting pieces of Indian art.  He ultimately decided that the Indian was a subject that needed and deserved to be painted, but in a style that had not been seen before.  

On a winter night in 1967, Scholder—a trained abstract painter with postmodern sensibilities—painted his first Indian.  His creative voice was a breath of fresh air within the world of Native art.  Some of the images were, at the time of their release, shocking and controversial because of their honest and unflinching portrayals of Indians as Scholder saw them.  These images have aged well, both visually and thematically, as they were created by a compositional genius with a kind and empathetic spirit.  Scholder would go on to create hundred of images of Indians.  These images have become his most iconic works.

“Indian with Braid” is a simple and understated portrait of Indian, completed with just black ink.  Scholder’s tremendous compositional talent is on full display here, in a piece that, like some of his best works, he may have made very quickly.  His expressionist linework is sparse, giving the viewer exactly what is needed and nothing more.  The Indian’s thick braid is the only part of the piece that features any shading.  As in many of his more abstract works, Scholder provides just enough detail to define his subject for the viewer.  Here, that detail is a single beaded tassel with a feather.

This piece is signed in the lower right.  Its title and date—”Indian with Braid - 1969”— are written on the back of the piece, which is visible through a small window in the frame.   

Provenance: from the collection of a Santa Fe family
Condition: excellent condition