Fritz Scholder - Arizona Republic Obituary (good)
Ed Varner
FROM: The Arizona Republic
By Richard Nilsen
Feb. 12, 2005
Fritz Scholder challenged definitions of Indian art
Scottsdale icon considered 'great American artist'
Iconic Indian artist Fritz Scholder has died at 67 after a long
illness.
Scholder's mix of Pop Art and Native American imagery is credited with
revitalizing Indian art in the 1960s and '70s.
His art is in many major museums, including the National Gallery and
the National Museum of American Art in Washington and the Museum of
Modern Art in New York. He is also represented locally at the Phoenix
Art Museum and the Heard Museum.
"Fritz Scholder was a great American artist," said Frank Goodyear,
director of the Heard. "He challenged the definitions of Indian art
and, in doing so, created some iconic American images."
At a time when Native American art was dominated by the stereotyped
imagery then fostered by the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa
Fe, which emphasized "traditional" art, Scholder, who taught at the
institute from 1964 to '69, brought Indian imagery into the 20th
century, with pictures of Native Americans with pickup trucks, blue
jeans and beer cans.
As much as the content, the bravura, painterly style of his works was
fresh, almost brash.
Nevertheless, said Goodyear, Scholder would have been happiest to hear
himself described as a great American artist rather than as an Indian
artist. He never wanted to be limited by the label.
"Fritz would want to be remembered as an artist first and perhaps then
a Native American artist," said Frank Jacobson, president of the
Scottsdale Cultural Council.
"He went through lots of phases in his life, and his art reflected
those different periods," Jacobson said. "He was prolific and has an
incredible legacy that will represent the many different phases of his
life."
Scholder was born in Breckenridge, Minn., in 1937 to a German-American
father and a San Luiseño Indian mother. When he occasionally felt that
he was being pigeonholed as an Indian artist, he would complain that he
had as much right to be called a German artist.
He lived and worked in many places from Manhattan to Santa Fe but
finally moved to what had been his winter home in Scottsdale.
Although he made his name with images of Native Americans, he felt that
too often Indian art was defined by subject matter. "Stop painting
Indians," he once said.
In his own art, he explored many other themes from Egyptian art to
skulls, "mystery women" and "dream horses." He had an abiding interest
in the occult and the darker side of humanity, which also showed in his
art. But he was not a gloomy person.
"He had a dark side," artist Patsy Lowry said, "but to know him and to
meet him was not to meet a brooding, dark person. He was generous,
interesting, provocative and dedicated to art."
"My take on Fritz's work was that it dealt with death and dying, but he
was a man very much about living," said Bill Lykins of Chiaroscuro
Gallery in Scottsdale, where Scholder had his last show in 2003. "He
woke up and was anxious to take on the day, so it was ironic that so
much of his work incorporated skeletons. He had an absolute passion
about life."
Scholder was known for his expansive personality and the many
obsessions that flavored his life. He collected grotesque artifacts,
including a giant rhinoceros head that decorated the living room of his
Scottsdale home and his famous Egyptian mummified cat. The headboard of
his bed was a stuffed buffalo. And on the floor of his office was the
statue of a nude prone woman.
Scholder's home on Cattle Track Road in Scottsdale was legendary. In
addition to all his arcana and his collection of incunabula and
mummies, there is a 25-foot-tall Egyptian-style obelisk in his front
yard.
Nevertheless, death was a constant subject for Scholder.
"Death is completely fearful," he once said, "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."
His later art continued to attract collectors but not the popular
acclaim that his early art had received. He moved from gallery to
gallery in Scottsdale and sometimes had to compete with the resale
market in his older, more popular Indian imagery.
"From my standpoint, Fritz Scholder is going to go down as one of the
most important artists from Arizona," said Polly Larsen of Larsen
Gallery in Scottsdale, "and I think that his death is a great loss."
Larsen Gallery deals mainly in resale art, and Larsen said, "Scholder
is our Number 1 seller in the gallery."
Before his death on Thursday, Scholder had been ill with diabetes and
pneumonia and had spent much of the past year in hospice care.
"His condition was kept mysterious," Goodyear said, "and I think he
wanted it that way."
He had not painted much, if at all, during that time. His final show at
Chiaroscuro featured a group of paintings he called "Muses."
"He did that show for us and then fell ill at about the same time,"
Lykins said.
Lowry summed up her longtime friend by saying, "He was completely, 100
percent dedicated to living his life, completely as an artist.
Everything he did was for art. To develop his art, develop his eye.
"He was an artist first and foremost and always."
He is survived by his wife, Lisa Markgraf Fisher, of Scottsdale; and
one son, Fritz William Scholder VI, and one grandson, Fritz William
"Fritzie" Scholder VII, both of Tampa.
A memorial service will be held Feb. 18 at the Heard Museum.
Karmac
Oct. 17, 2013
I was a student of Mr. Scholder's for 25 yrs. starting in 1976.
He critiqued my work in such a way that i was never offended.
He was so generous with his time and with his resources, to me, that I will
forever be in his debt.
its been a long time--and we talk now, still, even more then we did when he was here on earth alive. i do miss him even tho' we speak now and he shares things with me.
i know a secret about him that i do not believe anyone else knows.
that secret is this--He found out late in life that he was adopted.
and he found out this too, he was a true F.B.I.
I miss you Fritzie,
Karmac
kfmcj...@yahoo.com
kfmcj...@yahoo.com