Posts from ‘Native American’
“Passage #39″ – Dan Namhinga. Acrylic on canvas, 84 x 72″
Dan and Arlo Namingha; Theodore Waddell. What a pairing. Altamira Fine Art is the gallery to connect these dynamic, sublime artists in a double show, opening with an artists’ reception Thursday, June 6th, 5-7:00 pm. The Naminghas’ “Form & Symbolism” and Waddell’s “Abstract Angus” are ultimately about interpretation of place. All three artists’ native territories’ images and landscapes course through their veins, exploding on canvas and permeating sculptures.
How exhilirating for Thomas Hoving to compile his can’t-put-it-down biography “The Art of Dan Namingha.” The Namingha family’s history begins with Dan’s great-great-grandmother, famed Tewa/Hopi potter Nampeyo (photographed by Edward S. Curtis, c. 1905). The family tree is an arts dynasty. That’s a regal word to describe a creative clan so rooted in landscape and indigenous culture, but it’s an undeniable accreditation.
How to begin to describe Dan’s remarkable journey as an artist? Namingha’s initial influence was Hekytwi Mesa near the Hopi reservation where Namingha was born. Namingha’s work is phenomenally diverse, the breath of his artistic style is almost impossible to comprehend; he moves from complex arrangements of Hopi mesas, kachinas, spirals, sun and depictions of dual cultures he inhabits to minimalist, graphic, geometric landscapes. As a child, Hekytwi Mesa was the dominant landmark beyond Namingha’s grandparents’ door. Its presence left an endurable mark on the artist’s soul, and some version of Hekytwi Mesa appears in almost every Dan Namingha work.
“West of Oraibi” – D. Namhinga
“The presence of two cultures, he believes, also makes him sensitive to the dual nature of all things—night and day, past and future, then and now,” writes Hoving. Ultimately, Namingha’s exposure to his native culture, wise and encouraging mentors, and 20th century abstract modernism are melded in this remarkable body of work.
“Cultural Images #10″ – Arlo Namingha
Sculptor Arlo Namingha, Dan’s eldest son, became involved with carving at an early age. Surrounded by his family’s legacy and practices, his first carvings of Katsina dolls manifested early in life. Positive and negative space, geometric design, cosmology and Hopi/Tewa identity are interwoven in Arlo’s wood, clay, stone, fabricated and cast bronze sculptures.
“Using the idea of design, form and movement, I minimize these literal images not to recreate them but to draw from them and my personal experiences,” writes Arlo Namingha. “My work not only reflects the figurative aspect of my native people and cultural deities but also the idea of scenery and landscape as well as symbolism.”
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“Horizon Horses #4″ – Theodore Waddell
Theodore Waddell’s comment to “American Art Collector” about his work and this show is delectable. “Well, the modern guys didn’t like me because I used subject matter,” said Waddell. “And then Western guys didn’t like me because I was too modern.”
Somebody liked him. Waddell’s work is highly influenced by the Abstract Expressionist school. Though the artist didn’t initially realize how important those artists were to his vision, he continues to relate fully to the sense that paint has its own identity.
“Angus DR#24″ – Theodore Waddell
In this show, we recognize the Montana artist and rancher’s signature painterly landscapes dotted with horses—often so abstracted as to resemble animal tracks rather than mature species. Waddell’s horses, cattle and bison—often black as coal—leave their mark below the thin blue line of Waddell’s mountain skylines. In Montana’s sky, clouds softly wave, like the sea. Waddell has expanded depth and range of color, suggestive of seasonal shifts in atmosphere, foliage and the earth’s tendancy to morph from fertile browns into hardened, impenetrable surfaces.
Alongside these works are fully abstract and interpretational works on paper from Waddell’s “Abstract Angus” series, recently exhibited at the Denver Art Museum. DeKooning is the expressionist I see most reflected in these illusive, amorphic works. They do, as the gallery has said, suggest the drift of grazing animals.
Western art encompasses so much more than the realism many of us associate with the term. But in the West, notes Waddell, we are a part of it all. This exhibition remains on display through June 15th. To view all of Altamira’s artists, click on their website, www.altamiraart.com .
Camus Prairie Angus | 40/40″ – Theodore Waddell
A. Warhol – Plains Indian Shield. Serigraph, 36×36″
“The American West has given rise to myths and legends. Warhol, with [his series] ‘Cowboys and Indians’ has deftly tapped in to that vast resevoir of powerful images that somehow relate to reality, but also mystify it.” ~ MoMa
Altamira Fine Art has unveiled an impressive and exciting assembly of recent aquisitions. The lion’s share of new works come from Altamira’s exceptional roster of Contemporary Western artists; a few are exquisite works by deceased masters. Artists with new work in the gallery are Rocky Hawkins, Joseph Henry Sharp (1859-1953), R. Tom Gilleon, Andy Warhol (1928-1987), Duke Beardsley, Bill Schenck, Jared Sanders, Dan Namingha (sublime), Harvey Thomas Dunn (1884-1952) and Ed Mell.
I’ll be writing about all these artists as the season progresses, but today I’ll tell you a bit about Warhol, Schenck and Namhinga.
A Pittsburgh native, Warhol built his fame in New York, and remains one of the world’s most influential artists. He’s considered by many to be the king of Pop Art; toward the end of his life he turned his attention to Western themes. I’ve often thought that his late-in-life interest in landscape, Western symbols and icons sprang from some unconscious knowledge that time was short. He’d also purchased land at the end of Long Island that was, in that era, remote. The natural setting affected the artist. Warhol’s “Plains Indian Shield” is pictured above, and is available at Altamira. Warhol’s Western themed work is relatively scarce, and for Western art collectors, very special.
A Pop artist of high reputation himself, Schenck is, in part, returning to one of his earlier styles. His flattened, pointillistic black and white images of a black-haired, almost unbuttoned, sunglassed cowgirl harkens back to Roy Lichtenstein’s cartoon-like “commentaries” on Pop. Interestingly, Lichtenstein was also interested in Western themes early on in his career. Schenck’s “True Romance State III” ( 60 x 50″, shown at left) is at once sexy, beckoning, and contains a touch of humor.
Susan Moldenhauer
“In essence, the heightened level of credibility we might gain as a town/ arts group by affiliating ourselves with a major university is huge. The types of programs, events, associations that could be brought to Jackson – or that we might find a way of attending en masse in Laramie, are also considerable.” - Mariam Diehl
Not long ago I was fortunate to meet the University of Wyoming’s Art Museum Director Susan Moldenhauer, a familiar figure to many Wyoming artists and to other museum staff and associates in our state. Moldenhauer was accompanied by university Foundation Relations representative Katrina Woods McGee. Soft-spoken, finely academic, curious, creative and warm, Moldenhauer is also an accomplished photographer. We spoke of the challenges of juggling multiple responsibilities. When she organizes museum exhibits, she “does it with an artist’s eye,” accomplishing the task with an equally strong administrative sense. Some of you may have seen Susan at this past weekend’s three-day “CLICK!: A Weekend for Wyoming Visual Artists,” held at UW.
CLICK! provides opportunity for otherwise isolated Wyoming artists to network; they also have the opportunity to meet regional and national artists such as Eminent Visiting Artist Judy Pfaff, a McArthur Fellowship Genius Award recipient. Pfaff’s show, I Dwell in Possibility, exhibited in Jackson during the summer of 2010 at the Tayloe Piggott Gallery.
Susan’s brief visit here ideally sparks greater interaction between Jackson’s arts and UW. Pushing through our wintry “fourth wall” can be a challenge, but imagining a richer conversation is so exciting. Exhibits expected to be in place at UW later this spring include:
Redefining the Edition: 13 Japanese Printmakers
Haitian Art from the permanent collection
Judy Pfaff: running between hot and cold (working title)
Teaching Gallery: History of Mexico, Islamic Art History, Printmaking, Photography (all permanent collection)
Carol Prusa: Emergent Worlds
"Forage," Ricki Arno - Mixed Media
What kind of bird are YOU?
Another of our town’s artful community collaborations, conceived and produced by artist and National Museum of Wildlife Art (NMWA) Assistant Curator of Art Bronwyn Minton, manifests at Mix’d Media, Thursday, November 8, 6-9 pm, at NMWA. Sixty-five artists created pages of art that will come together in the exhibition Silverspot: A Graphic Novel. Each page illustrates a page from Silverspot, the Life of a Crow, by the founder of the Boy Scouts, Ernest Thompson Seton.
“In 1910 Seton was chairman of the founding committee of Boy Scouts of America,” writes Seton’s website bio. “He wrote the first handbook (including B-P’s Scouting material) and served as Chief Scout from 1910 until 1915. Seton did not like the military aspects of Scouting, and Scouting did not like the Native
American emphasis of Seton. With WW I, the militarists won, and Seton resigned from Scouting. He revived Woodcraft in 1915, not as a children’s organization, but as a coeducational organization serving all ages, THE WOODCRAFT LEAGUE OF AMERICA.”
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“In my photography, color and composition are inseparable. I see in color.” ~ William Albert Allard
Always in color. American documentary photographer William Albert Allard has always shot in color; many contemporary photographers move back and forth from color to black and white. Allard began his documentary career at National Geographic in 1964, a “major force” at that magazine for 50 years. Allard will give a special presentation at the National Museum of Wildlife Art (NMWA) on Friday, October 26, at 6:30 pm; doors open at 5:30 pm. The event christens the museum’s exhibit “National Geographic Greatest Photographs of the American West.” Open to the public, tickets are $5, free to museum members. The American West photography exhibition officially opens October 27th at NMWA and at nine other museums across the U.S., including the National Geographic Museum in Washington, D.C.
Tehachapi Wind Farm, California, 2008- Jeff Kroeze/National Geographic Stock
Allard’s “American Indian Beauty Pageant Winner, Oregon, 1997,” above, blows me away. My assumption was that this young woman, Acosia Red Elk, was attending an all-Indian gathering. A bit of research told me otherwise; National Geographic published an article in September, 1999, entitled Rodeos: Behind the Chutes. Acosia Red Elk is part of that year’s Pendleton Round-Up Rodeo; Indians are sometimes rodeo cowboys. She awaits the rodeo parade’s start.
Cultural pride is evident in this photograph, as are the physical and artistic tangibles of Acosia Red Elk’s people. She is beautiful, powerful. Allard frames the diagonals of her headdress feathers and teepees; depth of field, the rich colors of Indian beading and design and a darkening, stormy sky move my eye around the image. And they move my heart. Pride of history and place are evident throughout this exhibition.
