Abstract Expressionist

Fritz Scholder

Open Early - January 21st to April 26th

“When I first came to Santa Fe, I vowed to myself that I would not paint Indians. Then I saw the numerous over romanticized paintings of the ‘noble savage’ looking in the sunset and decided that someone should paint the Indian from a different context.”
-Fritz Scholder

Fritz Scholder (1937-2005) was a prolific and revolutionary painter of the 20th and early 21st century. While he is usually categorized as an Abstract Expressionist, his influence on and by the Pop Art movement cannot be understated, especially given his tutelage under Wayne Thiebaud. In addition to his contributions to the rising Abstract Expressionist movement in America as both an artist and later as a professor at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA), he was also played a key role in starting dialogues about what it meant to “be Indian” in a post-modern America. He tackled complex issues with a refreshing bluntness and a refusal to be pigeon-holed.

He was an enrolled member of the Luiseno tribe, but often said he was “not Indian”- not
because he did not want the art world to know his origins but because he was not the romanticized Indian seen in western paintings nor was he a traditionally trained artisan working in a “truly” indigenous artform. He was a modern day Abstract Expressionist painter, but even that title could not fully encompass him as he once said he considered himself more of a “colorist.” His deconstruction of the “Native American” mythos and his bold artistic style remains as powerful today as when he began his career in the late 50’s. This exhibit features both paintings and lithographs, including a complete set of his iconic Barcelona Suite series.