Biography from American Design Ltd.:
| Fritz Scholder was born in Breckenridge, Missouri. He was the
fifth consecutive male of his family to bear this name. His
paternal grandmother was a member of the Luiseño tribe of Mission
Indians. Although Scholder did not consider himself an Indian, he
was regarded by many as a leader of the New American Indian Art
movement.
Throughout his childhood, the painter's family moved
frequently, living mostly in small towns in the Dakotas and
Wisconsin. In the long winter evenings, young Fritz amused
himself by drawing, an interest that was soon channeled into serious
art study. The painter Oscar Howe, a Sioux Indian, introduced him
to modern art while he was still in high school. In 1957, the
family settled in Sacramento, where Scholder earned a Bachelor of Arts
degree at Sacramento State University. At Sacramento, the painter
Wayne Thiebaud exposed Scholder to the Pop Art movement. Thiebaud
also arranged Scholder's first solo exhibition.
After
graduation, Scholder taught public school in Sacramento. In 1961,
he won a scholarship to the Southwest Indian Art Project at the
University of Arizona, where he earned a Master's of Fine Arts degree.
From
1964 to 1969 he taught painting and art history at the Institute of
American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. From the beginning,
he struggled to represent the landscape and people of the Southwest
without indulging in the romantic clichés of genre art on the Native
themes. In time he created an extraordinary fusion of abstract
expressionism, surrealism and pop art to expresss his unique vision of
the Southwestern scene and the Native experience.
Early in his
career, he received support from the Rockefeller, Whitney and Ford
Foundations. After five years in Santa Fe, he retired from
teaching to paint full-time. For the next few years he traveled in
Europe and North Africa.
He added sculpture and printmaking to
his activities, creating mixed media constructions, bronzes,
lithographs, etchings and monotypes. From the beginning, he created
works in series: women, landscapes, Indians, butterflies, cats, dogs,
dreams, the Empire State Building, ancient Egypt.
Beginning in
the late '60s, Fritz Scholder was a guest artist or artist-in-residence
at American University, Idyllwild School of Music and the Arts, the
Oklahoma Arts Institute, Santa Fe institute of Fine Arts, and Dartmouth
College. He received grants from the American Academy of Arts and
Letters, as well as arts organizations in France and Germany.
Over
a dozen books have been published on Fritz Scholder and his work, and
he has been profiled in two documentaries for public television.
In a single year, exhibitions of his work were seen in Japan, France,
China, Germany and at the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg,
Russia. For many years, he maintained his primary residence in
Scottsdale, Arizona.
He died in 2005 at the age of 67.
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Biography from Adobe Gallery:
| Fritz Scholder (1937-2005), Luiseno Mission Tribe , challenged every
stereotype of Native Americans as people and as artists. His
feelings were that he was an artist, rather than an Indian
artist. He purposely distorted his paintings of Native Americans
so that he could relay the pain and confusion his people have
felt. He believed that “[t]here is still real magic in the
remnants of the American Indian” (American Indian Painting & Sculpture by Patricia Janis Broder).
Scholder started instructing at the Institute of American Indian Art in
1962, and was one of the original four founding members to open the
school.
Fritz Scholder studied under Francis Bacon, Bachelor of Fine Art,
California State University, Sacramento; Master of Fine Art, University
of Arizona, Tucson; Southwest Indian Art Project, Tucson. |
Biography from Southwest Graphics Collection:
| Fritz Scholder, a Native American artist and experienced lithographer, was born in 1937 in Breckenridge Minnesota. Encouraged to paint in 1950 by Oscar Howe and Wayne Thiebaud, Scholder says "...it is my intention not only to set up graphically a new visual experience for the viewer, but also to make a statement in regard to the society and land in which we, the descendants of the American Indian, live. I am well aware that my paintings are not literal, for to me some ideas require unique statements. I try to capture not only the physical, but the inner and even spiritual."
He currently (2004) lives in Scottsdale, Arizona and Galisteo, New Mexico. Scholder has exhibited extensively in the United States and abroad. His work is included in many public and private collections including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Hirschhorn Museum of Fine Arts, Washington,D.C.; the National Collection of Fine Arts, Smithsonian Institute; and the Boston Fine Arts Museum. |
Biography from AskART:
| Born in Breckenridge, Minnesota, Fritz Scholder became a prominent Indian portrait, figure, and genre painter in Arizona. His father was part Indian, and Fritz Scholder chose to focus his art work on this part of his lineage and to express both an appreciation and disdain for Indian customs, traditions, and daily existence.
He studied at the University of Kansas, Wisconsin State University, and with Wayne Thiebaud at Sacramento College in California. He earned an Master of Fine Arts Degree from the University of Arizona. A long-time resident of Scottsdale, Arizona, he has filled a number of artist-in-residence positions including Dartmouth College and the Oklahoma Summer Arts Institute.
In his work, he frequently showed the harsh, realistic side of Indians' lives and deaths including the affects of alcohol and other dissipations, but some of his depictions are humorous such as Indians on horseback carrying umbrellas. His brush-work is generally swift, and the tone often sombre and surreal. A major influence on his work was the contemporary British artist, Francis Bacon, from whom Scholder adapted ironic distortions into his canvases.
In Scottsdale, he lived in an adobe-walled oasis of palm trees and oleander, amid skulls and skeletons. In the garden, several of Mr. Scholder's sculptures feature skull-like heads. In the library, an 18th-century skull engraved with witchcraft symbols shared shelf space with books printed before 1500. And the porch had been converted into a skull room, complete with Mexican Day of the Dead paraphernalia that spill from cabinets and rest on shelves and antique chairs.
In a "New York Times" interview, August 12, 2001, Scholder said that in spite of the death-related items with which he surrounds himself, "I consider myself a natural optimist which might be surprising, because I like the dark side of things. That's simply because of intellectual curiosity. I celebrate each day. I truly wake up happy every morning."
In appearance he was rather heavy set with shoulder-length hair and a radiant smile. He was shy and idiosyncratic including the driving of a gold 1979 Rolls-Royce fitted with tinted windows.
In his childhood, where he was the fifth sibling in a primarily German family, he showed a passion for collecting, which has dominated his largely autobiographical art. His career includes etchings, aquatints, lithographs, monotypes, photographs, collages, sculpture and mixed media, but he is best known for his paintings.
Fritz Scholder died February 10, 2005 at age 67 in Scottsdale, and a memorial service was held at the Heard Museum in Phoenix. He was married to Lisa Markgraf Fisher and had one son. In his artwork, death had been a constant preoccupation for Scholder. He said: "Death is completely fearful, a terrible violence that intrudes into what people believe. It's not what I want to think about, but it's there and is either the worst practical joke in creation or the fault of whoever made all this up."
Sources include:
"Southwest Art"
Peggy and Harold Samuels, "Contemporary Western Artists"
Obituary, "The Arizona Republic", February 12, 2005, A18
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