Post-War Native American Art and Late Modernism

Introduction: Native American Art and the Modernist Tradition

To evaluate the impact that Native American art has had on the evolution of late Modernism — and vice versa — is not an easy task. It was only in the 1930s that art critics and historians began paying attention to Native American art and that it began to be exhibited in respectable galleries, and it was not until the 1960s that trained art historians began teaching Native American art in American universities. Yet, despite its historical slandering by the art historical canon, art has played a vital role in documenting the Native American experience.

While art inarguably has served different purposes for various Native American tribes over time, in the 20th century many Native artists working in a variety of mediums began to appropriate the language of Modernism — the "master narrative" of the colonizers — towards their own ends. This represented a particularly subversive move on the part of the artists, as Modernism was traditionally built on the heels of white European artists who looked towards the "exotic" other for inspiration (the most obvious example being Picasso's interest in African art).

This essay examines the work of a select group of Native American artists working in the post-war era who managed to adapt a Modernist language in their own work while simultaneously subverting that language by filtering it through their own personal experiences as Native artists. While some of the artists discussed here are still active, the focus is limited to the period immediately after World War II and up to the 1980s.

Allan Houser and the Language of Abstract Sculpture

Allan Houser is perhaps the most famous example of an artist who managed to combine the unique problems posed by Native American existence in the 20th century with the language of abstract Modernism through his painterly and sculptural output. His first major work, Comrade in Mourning (Fig. 1), was completed in 1949. Although Houser would later come to be known primarily for his stone sculptures, this was his first major work in stone — the result of a commission in Lawrence, Kansas. The work was meant to be a tribute to Native American students who had died fighting for the United States in the Second World War.

The work is a large-scale monumental piece that, though fairly straightforward in its execution, gives us insight into the more abstract style that Houser would later develop over the course of his prolific career. The figure depicted — clearly a Native American male — wears a somber expression. He stares forward, struck by the immense tragedy of a situation he is barely able to comprehend, and is wrapped in a blanket in an effort to protect himself from the cold harshness of the external world. The sculpture is neither realistic in a monumental sense nor rooted in the traditions of Apache Indian artwork; the style is all Houser's own. The overall shape of the piece is round and smooth. It is the stunned expression on the figure's face that ultimately draws us in, reminding us that there are truths of a more existential nature that cannot be stated easily, and that it is the task of art to ask such questions.

Lee H. Marmon and the Photography of In-Between Worlds

Another Native American artist from New Mexico, Lee H. Marmon, has worked in the medium of photography since the late 1940s. His best-known work, White Man's Moccasins (Fig. 2), was photographed in 1954. The black-and-white photograph captures an 85-year-old tribal elder of the Laguna mission relaxing under the late afternoon sun with a cigarette in hand. He wears a traditional headband and beaded necklaces — and a pair of "white man's moccasins," as the title sardonically puts it: Keds high-tops that were popular in the United States at the time.

The photograph articulates a late Native American Modernism that is quite unique in the history of art. The fusion of tradition and the inevitable trends of the West that the subject wears on his body tells us that the mid-20th century was a time of transition on Native American pueblos — a moment when tribal traditions and practices would eventually give way to westernization and modernization. The figure is suspended between two worlds. Yet, unlike the mournful expression found on the face of Houser's sculpture, this man does not seem to be in pain. Rather, one finds a peaceful serenity in his upward gaze, as though he has already come to terms with the transitory nature of his position in space and time.

Conclusion: Subverting the Master Narrative

Of course, a full history of Native Americans' engagement with Modernism would require a much longer essay — probably even an entire volume. What this short piece has attempted to provide is some insight into the ways in which the Modernist paradigm has constantly been challenged by the work of Native American artists throughout the post-war period. The ironic thing is that much of this work would fit quite comfortably into the Western canon as it has been traditionally constructed by Euro-American discourse. At the same time, these artists come from a position of exclusion from that canon by virtue of their ethnic identity — an identity they have nevertheless sought novel ways of asserting through their work.

List of Figures

Fig. 1. Comrade in Mourning by Allan Houser (1949)

Fig. 2. White Man's Moccasins by Lee H. Marmon (1954)

Fig. 3. The End of the Trail by Fritz Scholder (1970)

Fig. 4. Self-Portrait in the Studio by T.C. Cannon (1975)

Fig. 5. Artifact Piece by James Luna (1987)

Bibliography

Rushing, W. Jackson III, ed. Native American Art in the Twentieth Century. New York: Routledge, 1999.

Wyckoff, Lydia L., ed. Visions and Voices. Tulsa, OK: Philbrook Museum of Art, 1996.