Bernard Buffet

Portrait of a Clown (Un Clown)

1968

Fritz Scholder (1937-2005) "Custer's Last Fight" Lithograph Ed. 54/75 Signed and Numbered Site Size: approx 22 x 30 inches Framed Size: approx. 35 x 41.5 inches Born in Breckenridge, Minnesota, Fritz Scholder became a prominent Indian portrait, figure, and genre painter in Arizona. His father was part Indian, and Fritz Scholder chose to focus his art work on this part of his lineage and to express both an appreciation and disdain for Indian customs, traditions, and daily existence. 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. In his work, he frequently showed 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 brush-work 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. In Scottsdale, he lived in an adobe-walled oasis of palm trees and oleander, amid skulls and skeletons. In the garden, several of Mr. Scholder's sculptures feature skull-like heads. In the library, an 18th-century skull engraved with witchcraft symbols shared shelf space with books printed before 1500. And the porch had been converted into a skull room, complete with Mexican Day of the Dead...

(after) Diego Rivera "National Palace, Mexico City (Juarez and the Reform Laws) 1933 from the portfolio "Frescoes of Diego Rivera" Published by the Museum of Modern Art, NY Hand-Signed by the Artist Diego Rivera was born on December 13, 1886 in the mountain town of Guanajuato in Mexico. His mother was an ardent Catholic and his father was a rich and aristocratic revolutionary fighter and an atheist. Little Diego decided in favor of atheism. He swore his family had to leave Guanajuato when he was six because of his diatribes against the Church. When he was eleven he attended the San Carlos Academy of Fine Arts; his real teacher was Jose Posada...