Sioux Chief by Fritz Scholder [SOLD]

After a few frustrating and unsuccessful experiments with the medium, Fritz Scholder began properly exploring lithography in 1969.  With the help of Albuquerque’s Tamarind Institute and its experienced professional printmakers, Scholder discovered that his compositional talents were well-suited to lithography.  His exploration and eventual mastery of lithography reinvigorated him creatively and encouraged him to explore styles and themes he’d not yet explored in his paintings.

This piece, which was completed eight years after Scholder’s initial run of lithographs, is a confident and experimental creative expression from an artist who had mastered the medium of lithography.  His “Indians Forever” suite and other early lithographs were, for the most part, fairly straightforward in their presentations of their subjects.  These later works are darker and more experimental, using complex webs of overlapping lines when, previously, simpler outlines may have been used.  Scholder combines and overlaps his colors more frequently in these later works, adding even more depth and variety to these already rich images.   

The subject of “Sioux Chief” stands tall and straight, head turned toward the viewer, with one foot in front of the other.  He is made of an intricate series of lines that vary in width, depth and opacity.  Executed in a stunningly beautiful dark purple, these lines cross, collide and combine to make a detailed depiction of an elaborately adorned Indian.  Scholder used shadows to create much of his subject’s form.  These dark purple shadows and outlines contrast beautifully with the off-white color of the paper on which they are printed, creating an image that could not have been made by anyone but Fritz Scholder.

This lithograph was eventually completed in 1978 in an edition of 150.  This is a color trial proof, meaning that it is a one-of-a-kind piece made while colors were being tested and adjusted.  Its colors vary slightly from the 150 numbered lithographs.  It is signed by the artist in the lower right, mounted on a blue board and surrounded by white matting that leaves the edges of the piece exposed.  The lithograph was executed at Tamarind Institute, the renowned lithography workshop in Albuquerque that is affiliated with the University of New Mexico.

Provenance: from the large collection of a Santa Fe resident
Condition: original condition
Recommended Reading: Fritz Scholder Lithographs by Clinton Adams