The art and art history of the American West has long been uncritically accepted as embodying positive nationalistic values that include courage, optimism, democracy, and individualism. In 1991, William Truettner's The West as America: Reinterpreting Images of the Frontier, 1820-1920 (1991) became one of the most politically charged western art exhibitions in American history to question and criticize these values and to underscore the ideological content of western art. The exhibition with its accompanying catalogue reinterpreted nineteenth-century images of the American West as expansionist propaganda. In spite of this groundbreaking and controversial exhibition and catalogue, exhibitions continue to promote largely romanticized and idyllic images of pristine landscapes with American Indians living in a harmonious world. The scholarly essay and museum exhibition entitled Lone Wolf (Hart M. Schultz): Cowboy, Actor and Artist, focuses on the artwork and life of Blackfeet artist Lone Wolf, (aka Hart Merriam Schultz, 1882-1970), who was active from 1915 to 1960, painting in Montana at Glacier National Park in the summertime, and wintering in Tucson, Arizona. As a little known and understudied American Indian artist, this exhibition and essay serve to expand awareness of the significant contributions by marginalized artists who successfully negotiated the terrain of the mainstream art world. Lone Wolf exemplifies a unique case study as an artist with American Indian heritage, who actively participated in the creation of stereotypical and romantic images about the American West, while he maintained that his first-hand experience and indigenous knowledge helped him to accurately depict what was considered the authentic American West. The exhibition and essay adds to the growing scholarly interest in the art of the American West and incorporates contemporary theories and scholarship that recognizes the American West and the art devoted to it as distinctly heterogeneous and embedded in a number of discourses that are overshadowed by the lingering romanticism and nostalgia that clings to much art of the American West.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:arizona.edu/oai:arizona.openrepository.com:10150/621717 |
| Date | January 2016 |
| Creators | Loscher, Tricia, Loscher, Tricia |
| Contributors | Moore, Sarah J., Moore, Sarah J., Burns, William J., Ivey, Paul E., Widdifield, Stacie G. |
| Publisher | The University of Arizona. |
| Source Sets | University of Arizona |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text, Electronic Dissertation |
| Rights | Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. |
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