The Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian called Fritz Scholder “the most influential, prolific, and controversial figure in the history of Native art.”
Scholder, an enrolled Luiseño, created his “Indian paintings” in the 1960s and 1970s after once vowing never to paint Indians. The provocative works, variously described by viewers as revelatory, ugly, clichéd, and realistic, coincided with the American Indian Movement of the 1970s that advocated for Indian civil rights.
Lorilland Tobacco Company commissioned Scholder, along with other contemporary artists, to create prints in honor of the US bicentennial. Scholder contributed Bicentennial Indian to the series.
How would you describe Scholder’s depiction of this figure? What statement do you think he might have been trying to make?
Fritz Scholder, Tamarind Institute, Lorillard Company, Bicentennial Indian, 1975, color lithograph on wove paper, Corcoran Collection (Gift of Lorillard Tobacco Company), 2015.19.2595