- Term
Fritz Scholder
- Alternate Term
Scholder, Fritz
- Occupation/Role
artist
- Nationality/Ethnicity
Luiseño
- Date
1937-2005
1937-2005
- Remarks
Fritz Scholder was born in 1937 in Breckenridge, Minnesota, son of Ella Mae Haney and Fritz William Scholder IV. 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. During his career he worked in various media, including etchings, aquatints, lithographs, monotypes, photographs, collages, sculpture and mixed media, but he is best known for his paintings. In his work, he frequently shows 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 brushwork 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.