Notes From the Road - End of the Trail

One of my hobbies is traveling around the country visiting museums, both the big flashy ones and the tiny little out-of-the-way ones. I have noticed lots of objects that make me think of similar items in our Museum. I thought, why not share these connections to other museums in our e-Gazette Blog? Thus, here is my new series titled Notes from the Road. My first piece is titled End of the Trail. If you remember, we have a small casting of James Earl Fraser's sculpture End of the Trail on the 7th floor of the North Building. It is part of a 'triptych' set up by Peter Hassrick to show the changing symbolism of the American Indian in Western art over a 30 year period of time. In addition, my Post is meant to be a companion piece to Jennifer Younger’s wonderful video discovery piece on Fritz Scholder. Scholder titled this painting, guess what, End of the Trail. He painted it in 1970. Obviously, Scholder based his painting on Fraser's sculpture. Scholder, however, turns Fraser's theme on its head by using bright knock-your-eye out colors, indicating that the American Indian, far going extinct, is on the road to a bright future. The painting is from the Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, Oklahoma. For riffs by another artist on Fraser's sculpture and for images and text on the original Fraser End of the Trail, please click on this link. Note: Please right click on this image and open in a separate window. This is a 10 mega pixel image and is a knock-your-socks-off picture when blown up. Joe Lantz