End of the Trail

Tommy McClain, an Arizona collector, was known to have one of the larger collections of art by Fritz Scholder.  These two gentlemen were friends over many years.

This drawing relates compositionally to a painting seen in the last photograph here titled Indian No. 16, oil on canas, 1967.  Indian No. 16 is illustrated on page 128 of Fritz Scholder Indian Not Indian.

(1937-2005) Fritz Scholder has been honored internationally for his unique style of art making. Part Native American, he dealt with the Native American as his principal subject for many years.

Permanent collections which include his works are: Museum of Modern Art. New York; Brooklyn Museum of Art; Art Gallery of Toronto; Bibliotheque Nationale. Paris; Center Cultural American. Paris; Los Angeles County Museum. California; San Francisco Museum of Art; National Collection of Fine Arts and the Houston Museum of Fine Arts.

Scholder is listed in Who's Who in the World. Who's Who in America. Who's Who in the West. and Who's Who in American Art. He has been honored by a number of publications uniquely devoted to him: Scholder/ Indians (1972) introduced by Adelyn D. Breeskin. Curator of Contemporary Painting and Sculpture of the National Collection of Fine Arts; Fritz Scholder Lithographs (1975). Indian Kitsch Photographs by Fritz Scholder (1979) and Fritz Scholder released by Rizzoli in 1982. A hard-bound catalogue was released in 1981 commemorating an exhibition staged by the Tucson Museum of Art titled Fritz Scholder The Retrospective 1960-1981. Fritz Scholder, who had been living in Scottsdale, Arizona. passed away on February 10, 2005 after a long illness.

More recently in 2008, two exhibitions were staged by the Smithsonian Institution, one in Washington DC at the National Museum of the American Indian and one in New York. To accompany those retrospectives was a hard bound book Fritz Scholder Indian Not Indian published the same year.

Keenly aware of the impact of printed recognition, Scholder kept a copy of each publication be it book or magazine, citing his work.  He knew that once cited in publications of consequence, his place would be more secure, art historically. 

One of the first galleries to exhibit his work was Tally Richards' Gallery in Taos, New Mexico.  Once he was sure to sell out everything produced for a show, he continued to sell through her for a solo exhibit.  That sell out show of his would help fund the small gallery in Taos, New Mexico for an entire year.  In this way he rewarded the one of the first galleries to take a chance on his work.