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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
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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
- Indian
- Landscape — plain
- Equestrian
- Object Number
- 1973.151
Artwork Description
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.