Fritz Scholder's Indian Portrait With Tomahawk

The artist of this painting is Fritz Scholder, a ¼ Native American Luiseno born in Breckenridge, Minnesota. Always being interested in art, Scholder spent his childhood drawing and using his imagination (Fritz Scholder: Indian not Indian). Being a fourth generation American having no Indian objects around the house or anyone to teach him about his heritage, Fritz did not grow up considering himself an Indian. (Fritz Scholder: Indian not Indian). From a young age, he was not proud of being Native American so beginning to paint Indians was the first encounter with his heritage. Scholder is mostly known for the variety of his Native American paintings with vivid colors and explosive brushwork. The painting that I chose is named “Indian Portrait with Tomahawk [State I].” This painting resembles a Native …show more content…
His conflicting feelings about his heritage are carried out by the series of paintings he created for the Indian Art project/ the cultural movement (Treasures from our west). Scholder’s Indian portrait with tomahawk “draws attention to the trite characteristics of native identity through the use of exaggeration. The gross proportions of the war bonnet, moccasins, and the figure’s hand—carrying a tomahawk—emphasize “otherness” and portray the perceptual constraints on the developmental growth and transformation of tribal identity.” (Treasures from our west). Scholder uses color blocking to draw out expression and emotion in a painting. The way he draws a link between himself and the German expressionists is by using color for both the outline of the shape and the shape itself (Treasures from our west). He does not depict the stereotypical Indian as a noble savage, rather represents the harsh reality that is the life of Native Americans. With the use of unnatural and bold colors, Scholder paints a distorted image of his perspective of an Indian (Treasures from our