Beginning in the mid-twentieth century, Native American artists exercised the ability to enter the contemporary art world as masters of their mediums and carriers of their dual Native and American heritage. Fritz Scholder carved his place in the art world, and the museum, achieving a balance between the desire to enter the mainstream art world and maintain traditional practices. Scholder’s role in the context of an art institution, which has driven the dissemination and selection of Native Art, entailed challenging the fields of art history, anthropology, ethnology, the museum, and history.
The construction and narrative that is instilled in Native American objects involves acknowledging a past, present and future. Fallacies in interpretation were results of collecting with little regard for context that …show more content…
The figure of the Noble Savage, a mythic representation of a romantic primitivism, is attributed to the eighteenth century writer and philosopher Jean- Jacques Rousseau. Moving past this figure, Scholder is choosing to reject romanticized authenticity for one that reveals Native artists as “individuals of this century.” Being a person of this century means discussing sensitive issues of alcoholism, diabetes, displacement, misrepresentation, and exploitation of Native imagery in the tourist industry and commercial setting. For Scholder engaging such sensitive topics meant doing so through painting; painting that was structured, had clear positionality and was controversial. Through viewing Scholder’s Indian Series (1967-1980), one can also gain an insight into how Scholder, as a Native American artist views his own heritage. He has a distinct perspective as an individual who understands the duality of an American and Native American identity. He invokes this duality in this works and demonstrates that his artistry could benefit artists as a whole, as well as