Indian Image

Fritz Scholder, Indian Image, 1972, acrylic on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the artist, 1973.151
Copied Fritz Scholder, Indian Image, 1972, acrylic on canvas, stretcher: 68 1⁄8 x 80 in. (173.0 x 203.2 cm.), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the artist, 1973.151

Artwork Details

Title
Indian Image
Artist
Date
1972
Location
Dimensions
stretcher: 68 1⁄8 x 80 in. (173.0 x 203.2 cm.)
Credit Line
Gift of the artist
Mediums
Mediums Description
acrylic on canvas
Classifications
Subjects
  • Equestrian
  • Indian
  • Landscape — plain
Object Number
1973.151
Linked Open Data
https://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/1973.151

Artwork Description

The figure in Indian Image appears to be just that: a flat image, as if cut from paper and pasted onto a colorful background.

An artist of Luiseño and European ancestry, Fritz Scholder both did and did not identify as American Indian, and early in his career, he chose not to paint American Indian subjects. He changed his mind in the 1960s, after encountering countless artworks that depict American Indian people two-dimensionally, as doomed figures existing only in a romanticized past.

By contrast, Scholder asserted a modern American Indian aesthetic. Enlivened by pop-art color and energetic brushwork, his paintings are pointedly contemporary in style, even when based--as is Indian Image--on a historical photograph.