American Indian Artist: Fritz Scholder

FRITZ SCHOLDER

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There are warriors who fight and love among themselves. Canvas loves paint as rain loves seeds. Earth loves dancing feet as stones love images. Clay loves fingers as night loves crickets. And the paint continues to fight canvas. The seeds continue to fight rain. Dancing feet continue to fight the earth. Images continue to fight stone. Fingers continue to fight clay. Crickets continue to fight night. Endless shields are made of the circles of fighting and loving. Endless shields are made for the warriors. An artist is a warrior. I am a warrior.

There are many warriors. Red paint against green. Indian against sidewalk. Sun against whisky bottle. Cloud against mountain. Brush against canvas. Lithostone against machine. Coyote against moon. Seed against rain. Truck light against night. Today against yesterday. Me against you.

In 1962 he received two major awards, including the Ford Foundation Purchase Award at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts. The same year he was awarded a John Hay Whitney Fellowship, and moved to Tucson to pursue his master's degree in fine arts. It was an exciting and constructive time in his life.

In 1964 he was appointed to the faculty of the newly established Institute of American Indian Arts, at Santa Fe, New Mexico. Indianism had now become a very important factor of his life. The credo of the school encouraged the students to recognize and take pride in their Indian heritage. Scholder encouraged them to explore and translate their culture into new means of expression. He began to collect Indian artifacts, and explore the surrounding pueblos. He began to attend the ceremonial dances, and study their history and legend.

Poet James McGrath envisions Fritz Scholder as a warrior. A man against canvas . . .

An artist is a warrior. I am a warrior. My birth was my first great wound. My birth made me angry. Today I see people everywhere as tourists snapping their camera eyes at me, at you They are thinking: I am a trinket. I am thinking: Tourists do not see that my head dress of hair dances in the sky cloudlike. If you remain a tourist, I will remain your enemy. If you want me as a painting, as your souvenir, I will remain your enemy. An artist is a warrior. I am a warrior. I am not a souvenir.

Nor does Fritz Scholder paint souvenir paintings. His work has been exhibited in more than thirty major group shows in the United States, Europe, Great Britain, South America, and Canada. He has had more than fifty one-man shows during which the public reaction to his unique approach has been overwhelmingly favorable. Prestigious collectors from every corner of the world proudly display his dynamic portrayal of the American Indian.

Scholder's work is displayed in permanent collections of twenty of the nation's leading museums, including the National Collection of Fine Arts, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; and is included in fourteen books dealing with the contemporary artist. From 1960 to 1972, he won fifteen major awards, and has not entered into competition since then.

An artist is a warrior and a lover. I am an artist. In painting, The Indian is not red - he is real. In painting, The canvas is not a picture - it is a battleground and an eye. In creating, The paint, the clay, the pencil, the ink is not silent-it is a neon voice, a rainstorm. In creating, The truth in my eye is not your truth - I open my canvas and paint eye to sun-burn you in my truth. In loving, I will palette knife you and press you in my litho press You will only understand my images as you become them. An artist is a warrior and a lover. I am an artist.

Perhaps, more than anyone else, McGrath's poetry has touched the soul of the artist.

Fritz Scholder identifies as an artist above being an Indian. It is his greatest hope that through his art he has been able to free other Indian artists from the stereotypes of the past, that they, too, might achieve recognition first of all as artists and individuals.

An exhibition of Fritz Scholder paintings rewards with a stunning impact of color and action. Elaine Horwitch Galleries, Scottsdale, Az.