Sep 18, 2015
‘Super Indian’ Takes On The Romantic Stereotypes Of Native Americans
In 1969, a Minnesota-born artist by the name of Fritz Scholder painted a portrait he dubbed “Indian with Beer Can.” The image shows a stark figure in sunglasses and a cowboy hat, sitting with his arms crossed and teeth bared before a can of Coors. Unlike many studio paintings that came before it – the ones that pictured Native Americans as indomitable or mystic figures detached from Whiter society – Scholder’s portrait was mundane, lower class, uncomfortable. It didn’t shy away from the taboo of alcoholism in indigenous communities, nor did it cover up America’s distaste for acknowledging poverty and alienation in the Indian Nation.
