Signed lower right margin in ink: "Paredes 1941"

Oblong bentwood box with lid. Small box (part a) is made of a single piece of bark curved into a long rounded shape, around a wooden base, with edges connected by stitchings of leather. Several small nails attach the bark to the base. Bottom interior has remnants of paper that had been glued to it. Exterior shows very faded black and red linear designs and swirls across the surface. Lid (part b) is of similar shape and construction with adhesive attaching the bark to the wooden top. Design is a black dotted line around red and black leaf shapes and triangles.

Large painted tapa cloth. Design is painted in a grid of 6 rows long by 3.5 rows wide. Almost entire cloth is stamped with dense designs in a reddish brown pigment. Darker designs are painted over that. Lower layer shows light brown wavy and diagonal lines, boxed circles, flowers, etc. Of the more dominant grid patterns, the top band is split in two with a small square of hearts one side and a square formed from triangles on the other; the next band shows designs made from diamonds and flattened triangles; the next shows an oval, formed by two crescent shapes, in between two single crescents with a four pointed star and a diamond on either side. The three bands then repeat again. The rough, frayed edges of the textile are unpainted.

Soapstone carving of a woman and child. Figure stands with feet and legs together, hands held parallel in front of her. She is carved wearing a parka (amautik) and an amaut, a large hood for carrying a child. A small head peaks out of the hood. Both faces are carved with smiling features. The figure is glued to a rectangular base of soapstone. The base of the stand is covered with yellow paper.

Felted wool bag, rectangular in shape with a flap covering the mouth and folding half way down the front.. Flap closes with a round, stone button. A braided handle is made of red and green yarn and attached at the upper corners. The front is embroidered with an igloo and sailboat, the flap with two purple walruses, and the back with flowers in orange, green and red, with blue vines. Red yarn is sewn around the edges of the flap and opening. The interior front of the bag is lined with thick brown paper.

Osuitok Ipeelee created this lively print of four musk oxen racing across the frozen tundra. It was part of the first graphics collection produced by Cape Dorset Graphics of the West Baffin Eskimo Cooperative, an organization started by James Houston (an artist and Northern Services Officer of the Canadian government) in 1959 to secure recognition of Inuit artists and economic opportunities for Native people. The prints of the collection were produced by an Inuit committee from drawings submitted by Native men and women. The first exhibition of thirty-nine prints toured Canada and the United States to great critical acclaim, leading to a continuation of the printmaking program, which is still active today.

What is Native American art and who is a Native American artist? The artist Fritz Scholder referred to himself as a non-Indian Indian, someone who never felt the pull of two different cultures. With this lithograph series he challenges popular stereotypical depictions of Indians as stoic, noble, pure, and the embodiment of wisdom. Instead, he offers an amorphous human form, showing only a scruffy face with an open mouth, though the hint of a warrior breastplate, the wrapped braids, and the sharply angled feather suggest a Native American identity. The figure’s tightly wrapped blanket and his turned pose seem to reject empathy from the viewer.

Fritz Scholder’s imagery in paintings and prints frequently explores the cultural contradictions of late twentieth-century Native American life. He often shows harsh realities but sometimes presents a humorous view, as in this lithograph, in which warriors on horseback carry non-native, innocuously jaunty umbrellas. This seemingly improbable scene is actually taken from real life; umbrellas have been used by both men and women as protection from the hot sun on the Plains since the late nineteenth century.

Fritz Scholder, ambivalent about identifying himself as a Native American artist, often chose an objective stance in portraying Native subjects. This lithograph belongs to a series in which he challenged stereotypical perceptions of the Indian as noble, pure, and a symbol of wisdom. Standing inert with an indecipherable expression, the figure nevertheless exudes a strange power, waiting for something the viewer can only guess.

Fritz Scholder’s imagery in paintings and prints frequently explores atypical views of Native American life. Most depictions of this subject feature the vibrant colors of the regalia and the swirling action of the Buffalo dancers, performing in celebration of their past. Instead, Scholder offers a somber depiction of the haunted soul of a man with hollow eyes. His vacant stare implies that the past is dead, the present is empty, and the future cannot be envisioned.