Andy Warhol · Web viewArthur Danto, writing in the ... The edition print shows another example...

Andy WarholCowboys and Indians

Exhibition Concept

Exhibition Goal 1: Introduce Andy Warhol’s Cowboys and Indians portfolio to the members and guests of the Briscoe Western Art Museum.

For many, Andy Warhol’s interest in Western subjects will come as a surprise, and seem out of character with the artist’s public image.

Andy Wahol was the undisputed leader of American Pop Art, a movement still hotly

debated by critics and others, many of whom believe that Warhol’s practice of copying

photographs onto canvas was not art at all. Supporters of American Pop Art exalt the ways in

which Warhol and his colleagues used household items, advertising images, and other “low” art

forms, along with commercial printing techniques to democratize art, and force Americans to

reflect on the materialistic society in which they live. Pop Art adherents contradicted the

premises of Modernism in the 1960s, paving the way for the Postmodernist revisions and

reactions in American art history in the 1980s.

Rejecting some tenants of Modernism in favor of a more traditional and

representational approach, Warhol’s Cowboys and Indians suite linked the American Pop

art and Western art genres more closely than a cursory review would reveal. In contrast to

Modernism, the American Pop Art movement reestablished respectability for representational

art, and, in so doing, established a link to Western art. The connection to Western art came when

pop artists reintroduced icons in painting, which many modernists had attempted to banish.

The 1986 edition is noteworthy in Andy Warhol’s late career, because it was the last

major print project completed before his death in 1987. Warhol created Cowboys and

Indians during the mid-1980s, arguably his most prolific period. The artist saw a re-emergence

of critical and financial success after he teamed up with Rupert Jasen Smith to produce thematic

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print series in the late 1970s. The portfolio included ten color screen prints on Lenox Museum

Board; each signed in pencil, and each an edition of 250.

Cowboys and Indians suite made a connection between mainstream modern art and

Western art; despite the beliefs of many in the art community that mainstream modern art

created during the second half of the twentieth century is the direct antithesis of what has come

to be known as Western art. Warhol embraced a new aesthetic emerging in the 1980s that

interpreted a modern “New West” as the cradle of mass culture. He paid tribute to “cowboys”

and “Indians” as archetypal American symbols. Warhol recognized the aesthetic validity of a

modern New West and he found new ways to express it; similar to, but different from the

historical paintings of Alfred Jacob Miller, Thomas Moran, Albert Bierstadt, Frederic

Remington, and Charles Marion Russell. As each generation reinterprets the past to serve its own

needs, Andy Warhol reinterpreted the myths and histories of the American West for the baby-

boomer generation that came of age in the 1960s.

Warhol’s creation of a series of Western American images represents an important

development within contemporary Western art. It should come as no surprise that pop artist

paid homage to the mythic American versions of Western history in printing the Cowboys and

Indians suite. Reminiscent of a childhood game, familiar to most Americans in the 1980s,

Cowboys and Indians suggested a classic American showdown of archetypal characters from the

stories of America’s westward expansion. For an artist as in tune with the American psyche, it

seems natural that Warhol would eventually turn his attention to the experience many historians

believe was the source of America exceptionalism.

The artist’s decision to undertake his own investigation of western subjects is

important. Through his choice of subjects, Warhol gives viewers a glimpse at the issues he

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believes worthy of discussion. By including a selection of four relatively obscure artifacts from

the collection of the George Gustave Heye Museum of the American Indian in New York City,

Warhol meant for Cowboys and Indians to stimulate contemporary debate about the status of

American Indians in the United States. Even so, the artist’s provocative selection of images was

fraught with ambiguity; the prints offered reminders of past transgressions against Native

peoples, but no solutions as to how contemporary Americans should address these wrongs.

The artist gathered inspiration from numerous places to create the portfolio.

Warhol’s images of Geronimo, Annie Oakley and Mother and Child were based on familiar

characters from Hollywood adaptations of American history that did not truly represent the real

roles of individuals in history. He comingled these icons with other well-known portraits of

American “heroes”–John Wayne, Teddy Roosevelt, and General George Custer. His images of

Annie Oakley and John Wayne were derived from publicity photos. General Custer and

Theodore Roosevelt were inspired by portraits by Mathew Brady and George Gardner Rookwod,

respectively.

Warhol juxtaposed his set of recognizable “cowboy” images with a profoundly

different set of “Indian” images derived mostly from museum artifacts. He included a Crow

Indian War-Medicine Shield, Northwest Coast Kwakiutl Mask, Southwestern Hopi Kachina

Doll, and a 1913 U.S. nickel, featuring an Indian head designed by James Earl Fraser, best

known for his classic sculpture of Indian defeat, End of the Trail. Warhol photographed the coin

and Native American artifacts himself, using the collections of the George Gustave Heye

Museum of the American Indian in New York City. This selection was unique in that no other

Warhol portfolio included portraits of objects. The dualities and ambiguities inherent in

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Warhol’s selection of images resulted in much speculation and ironic commentary about

America’s collective mythologizing of the historic West.

How did Americans feel about themselves and their country when confronted by

Warhol’s images in Cowboys and Indians? This series of images prompted Americans to ask

whether such representations glorified the West and the presumed leadership qualities that

enabled non-Indian settlers to appropriate Native people’s lands; or, whether they serve as artful

commentaries on just such self-satisfied presumption on the part of citizens who know nothing

about the Native peoples that were displaced in order to foster the ideals of ‘progress’ supported

as a national American vision.

Cowboys and Indians broke new ground in the visual portrayal of historic and

mythic icons of the American West. It was the first and only Warhol portfolio to combine

iconic portraits with totemic objects. It was also the only portfolio for which the artist created

trial proofs for more images than would be included in the final edition. For other projects,

Warhol decided which images would be in edition before creating trial proofs. The extra trial

proofs indicate the problematic nature of this project over the nearly two years it took to

complete.

By investigating the myths and histories of the American West, Warhol joined a

long line of contemporary artists that attempted to capture the region’s essence in their

work. Wading into the ocean of western imagery produced for pulp magazines, dime novels,

movies, television shows, fine art and magazine illustrations, Warhol distilled this imagery down

to ten serigraphs reflecting his view of America’s mass culture perceptions of cowboys and

Indians. The portfolio provided a series of historical mirrors through which contemporary

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Americans saw themselves and their own culture in the 1980s. What do you see when looking at

these images today?

Warhol continued his commentary on mass media with Cowboys and Indians,

recognizing the importance of the “icon” in the modern, advertisement-saturated world.

The artist’s prints demonstrated the ways in which artificial imagery affected how Americans

understood history through popular interpretations of the American West. Rather than portraying

American Indians within their historical landscapes or cowboys in their authentic forms, the

artist chose to portray popular, romanticized versions of the American West. The West he

selected to represent was a familiar one to most people in the 1980s that could still be found in

novels, films, and TV series.

Andy Warhol: Cowboys and Indians

General George Custer – Plains Indian Shield

John Wayne – Northwest Coast Mask

Teddy Roosevelt –Kachina Dolls

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Annie Oakley – Mother and Child

1913 Indian Head Nickel – Geronimo

Checklist:

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General Custer Plains Indian Shield

John Wayne Northwest Coast Mask


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Teddy Roosevelt Kachina Dolls

Annie Oakley Mother and Child


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1913 Indian Head Nickel Geronimo


Methods of Interpretation

Ambiguity is a key word in Andy Warhol’s artwork. The title Cowboys and Indians, a

reference to the familiar children’s game, is something of a misnomer, because several of the

portfolio images are neither cowboys nor Indians.

There is a push-pull element or that duality juxtaposed within the title, Cowboys and

Indians. Warhol’s Hollywood Western images reflect strong and aggressive, masculine cowboy

culture through portraits of John Wayne, Teddy Roosevelt, General Custer, Annie Oakley, and a

1913 Indian Head Nickel. In contrast, the artist represented Native American culture through

images of Geronimo with a Mother and Child, and a series of three totemic museum artifacts,

including Northwest Coast Mask, Kachina Dolls and Plains Indian War Shield.1

Cowboys and Indians series is significant in its illumination of America’s collective

mythicizing of the West. Consisting of various calculated juxtapositions, the series forces the

viewer to reconsider the concept of Western “hero” through portrayals of silent heroes of Native

American cultures. The first print in the series, 1913 Indian Head Nickel, reproduces in silvery

tone the familiar noble profile of an American Indian, which formerly appeared on the U.S. five-

cent coin. In contrast to the Indian’s fierce nobility is the taciturn self-satisfaction of General

Custer, his arms folded and gaze directed toward the distance.2

In Cowboys and Indians, Warhol brings his – and America’s– deepest associations to

each image, proving just how literate an artist he could be. Through his dispassionate, observant,

and encyclopedic involvement with all aspects of contemporary life, Warhol had an astonishing

capacity to both astonish and challenge his audiences in the 1980s. Hand-drawn lines printed 1 Hough, 79.2 Gallery guide for Works by Warhol from the Cochran Collection, c. 1998, produced by Wesley and Missy

Cochran, in the collection of Wesley Cochran.

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over the images, more deliberate than in earlier print series, accentuate and deepen the weight of

poignancy, intentionality, and urgency these works carry.

Warhol’s subject is the myth of the West, a kit bag of pervasive notions about history,

national identity, sentiment, and heroism. A stew cooked up in the kitchens of Hollywood,

popular literature, and advertising, flavored with insistent tourism and chamber of commerce

boosterism, its main ingredients are the idealization of colonization, glorification of violence,

and a malignant and insidious disregard for racism. Spoons in hand, we are still gathered around

that pot today.

The choice of imagery for ‘Cowboys and Indians’ was Warhol’s, the artist chose the

images that were meaningful to him. A large part of the meaning was their popularity. Warhol’s

series was made for baby boomers, like himself, for whom Roy Rogers fantasies and the

attendant dress code were second nature. 3

Ronald Reagan occupying the White House at the time Warhol produced Cowboys and

Indians may have influenced the image choices for the thematic print series. During the 1980s,

Warhol ruled as the laureate chronicler of Imperial America, its dreams, depredations, disasters,

and eventual self-parody. President Reagan was the poster boy for Warhol’s in-crowd in the

1980s, sitting tall in the presidential saddle and often photographed as such at his Rancho del

Cielo home.

All of this Warhol conveys deadpan without showing any expression or emotion for the

myths and histories of the American West. He leaves nostalgia for American’s past behind in the

dust of old photographs. In place of nostalgia, the artist enables his audience to interpret his

3 Bill Berkson, The Sweet Singer of Modernism and Other Art Writings 1985-2003 (Jamestown, Rhode Island: Qua Books, 2003) 246.

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portraits as simply shapes suspended before our eyes. He and his squeegee work collective

memory to the nub. Then they move on. If bits of grim fact and horror remain, those are in the

eyes of the beholders.4

Arthur Danto, writing in the Warhol catalog raisonné, attempted to identify the reasons

that Warhol’s art resonates so powerfully with Americans. “A community is defined by the

images its members do not have to find out about, but who know their identity and meaning

immediately and intuitively. Everyone in America knew Liz and Jackie, Elvis and Marilyn,

Mickey Mouse and Superman, Campbell’s Soup and Brillo. When this knowledge vanishes, the

culture will have changed profoundly.”5

Such observations apply just as readily to the John Wayne, Geronimo, and General

Custer portraits in the Cowboys and Indians suite. Are these images still a relatively well-known

to many Americans? More obscure figures like Annie Oakley and Teddy Roosevelt, at least

insofar as his association with the American West is concerned, are even less recognizable to the

public. In the same manner, Native American art collectors may appreciate the history, quality

and spirituality of the museum artifacts selected for the portfolio, while the general public may

simply connect with the abstract qualities of their designs.

Warhol’s Cowboys and Indians prints may be characterized as vessels holding collective

memories of an American time and place. The portfolio of ten prints is like a time capsule,

preserving the defining images of an aging population on paper and in ink chosen to withstand

the tests of time. In its own way, the portfolio has a memorial function, looking backward. It

answers to the same impulses as those experienced by artists in preceding generations.6

4 ibid., 246-248.5 Danto, in Feldman and Schellmann, 3d ed., 11.6 ibid., 14.

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The source photographs embody much of the power that the Cowboys and Indians

printing process. Writing in Southwest Profile, not long after Warhol’s death, Nicole Plett saw

the irony of a relatively new artistic media chronicling the end of an era, something the artist

himself might also have recognized. Plett wrote, “Most of the portrait images in the series have

come down to us by way of 19th century photography, a technology that at the time was well

suited to capture the last gasps of the American Wild West.”7

It is ironic that Warhol used a photograph by Mathew Brady in this series. Brady is not

only credited with popularizing photography among the American people, but also with creating

a distinctive style of portraiture of famous people. Cultural historian Alan Tractenberg writes in

Reading American Photographs, “In the crafting the mythos of the public portrait, which

included a public image of the image maker, no American played a greater role than Mathew

Brady.”8

Like Brady, Warhol spent much of his time soliciting celebrities from all walks of life to

sit for portraits at one of his studios, and creating fame for himself, basking in the reflected glow

of the stars he attracted into his sphere of influence. Moreover, the two entrepreneurs ran their

businesses similarly. Neither Brady nor Warhol did much of the physical work required to create

the finished products of their studios; nevertheless, the master’s touch and name were

inescapable.

By referencing conditions and concerns of present-day society through historical imagery

and images of historical objects, Warhol’s Cowboys and Indians prints functioned as modern

historical myths in the American culture of the 1980s. Warhol juxtaposed totems of primitive

7 Plett, 32.8 Alan Trachtenberg, Reading American Photographs: Images as History, Mathew Brady to Walker Evans

(New York: Hill and Wang, 1989) 33.

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cultures with a new system of classification—mass produced imagery—to show how technology

influenced iconography.

The portfolio relied upon artifacts from the Museum of the American Indian in New York

to show how Native American cultures relied upon icons to trigger memories and the stories that

provided the intellectual means of resolving conceptual contradictions or dualities in their

societies. Modern American culture replaced primitive Native American myths with history to

fulfill these functions. History emphasized continuity for modern cultures. The relationships

between the past and present are not simply casual. Modern society insisted that the past be like

the present. Cowboys and Indians demonstrated how concepts of contemporary social

consciousness were embedded in history.

Warhol’s choice of images for Cowboys and Indians says more about American culture

in the 1980s, than it tells us about the historical characters and artifacts depicted in the prints.

Reading Warhol’s prints like other forms of literature may reveal the artist’s coded and

allegorical messages.

When Warhol printed the Cowboys and Indians suite in the 1980s, concerns about

national identity were paramount. Tensions came with the creation of a corporate welfare state,

designed to serve the collective needs of a mass society, and concerns for the rights of

individuals in that society. The Vietnam War, Civil Rights Movement, Watergate scandal, and

the social assimilation of ethnic minorities, all caused anxieties.

Warhol’s Cowboys and Indians challenged the notions of white centrality in

representations of race and ethnicity in the 1980s. Racism was implicit in his celebrations of

national aggrandizement through images of Teddy Roosevelt, General Custer, John Wayne,

Annie Oakley, and the 1913 Indian Head Nickel. Warhol sanctioned white superiority by

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selecting these images to represent America’s territorial expansion, dispossession of Native

peoples, nostalgia for a largely mythologized past, exalted self-reliance, and the positing of

violence as the main solution to personal and societal problems. Despite a wide thematic

reverence for law and order, the glorification of violence in “cowboy” icons ultimately glorified

and glamorized bloodshed as the Western genre’s reason for being.

Warhol’s Cowboys and Indians suite also drew attention to gender relationships in the

1980s. There is a centrality of masculinity in Warhol’s choice of images. These prints idealized

manhood. He chose to portray images of men who feared losing their mastery and identity to

women. Nothing symbolized this idea more significantly than Annie Oakley, associating women

with guns in contrast to the archetypal school marm popularized in Western literature, films and

television. Prairie Madonnas, the other female archetype in Western popular culture, is

reinterpreted by Warhol through the representation of a Native American mother and child.

1.

a.

b.

c.

d.

e.

f.

g.

h.

Warhol’s Printmaking Process

Andy Warhol had a unique style of making mono-prints, drawing in pencil, tracing the

lines with ink, and blotting the ink onto the final paper surface. He then made multiple images

from the inked surface to create a wallpaper effect. Known as the most painterly method among

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printmaking techniques, Warhol’s mono-prints are essentially printed paintings. The

characteristic of this method is that no two prints are alike; although the images can be similar.

Warhol hired Rupert Jasen Smith to produce his thematic serigraph series in the late

1970s. Cowboys and Indians was an edition of 250 portfolios containing ten images, each

measuring 36 x 36 inches. In addition, Warhol would often create original artwork, including ten

paintings measuring 60 x 60 inches and another ten measuring 20 x 20 inches. Each print was

signed by the artist and numbered.

Warhol’s process of making serigraphs—silk-screened prints—started with a photograph,

typically a portrait of an individual; however, in the case of the Cowboys and Indians suite, the

artist used images of artifacts in the collection of the Museum of the American Indian in New

York. This was the first and only series in which Warhol included images of objects. Warhol

used each source photograph to create a drawing. The artist used an overhead projector to help

him enlarge the source image to the desired size, so that he could trace its basic outline. He used

positive, negative, and half-tone photographs of the source images in making decisions about

colors and values for the final print. Then, the artist and his assistant prepared a screen for the

drawing that outlined the final print and each color used on the final print. Each screen was used

to apply color to a piece of paper the size of the finished print.

Experimenting with color, Warhol and Smith created multiple trial proofs for each image.

Warhol sold the trial proofs when he released each new series. From the original pool including

dozens of images, the artist selected fourteen images to make trial proofs. Warhol and Smith

produced trial proofs to illustrate the range of color options that might be used for a particular

image. The trial proof selected for reproduction in the suite is known as the edition print. Never

before had Warhol tested more than the final ten images selected for an edition. The creation of

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these additional images was another anomaly making the Cowboys and Indians series different

from other Warhol works.

This section will include the four trial proof prints: Sitting Bull, Action Picture, Indian

with War Bonnet, and the 1913 Bison Nickel, the flipside of the Indian Head Nickel included in

the series. Please note that the 1913 Indian Head Nickel is a design motif repeated in the

architecture bordering the lobby and mezzanine of the Briscoe Western Art Museum. These four

images were rejected for the final edition of the Cowboys and Indians portfolio. The Buffalo

Nickel (verso of the 1913 Indian Head nickel); Action Picture, based on the 1903 Charles

Schreyvogel painting Breaking Through the Lines, owned by the Gilcrease Museum of Tulsa,

Oklahoma; War Bonnet Indian, appropriated from a publicity photograph for an unknown

western movie; and Sitting Bull, based on a photograph by Orlando Goff, a pioneer Dakota

photographer. Only 36 unique trial proofs of each of these rejected images exist, although there

is still some confusion over this fact.9

The Warhol print catalog raisonné indicates there was an additional printing of Sitting

Bull images, beyond the 36 trial proofs. There is no mention of how many were printed as they

were neither numbered nor signed by the artist. The Warhol Foundation still holds a large

quantity of these prints, indicating that perhaps 250 were printed for the original portfolio, before

someone, likely the publisher, changed his mind about including them. Since Warhol’s death the

foundation has been selling these Sitting Bull prints, stamped “authentic” on the back of the

image. Occasionally they show up at auction.10

9 Feldman and Schellmann, 3d ed., 273. 10 Timothy Hunt, Andy Warhol Foundation, New York, to the author via telephone, 5 May 2005.

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Square Format

Warhol’s choice of a square format for his Cowboy and Indian suite follows a tendency

evident in several of his other major print projects. The artist’s preference for square shaped

prints is curious, in light of the fact that most of the source images he selected are rectangular,

particularly the portraits. In his book The Philosophy of Andy Warhol, the artist provides a

rambling explanation for his love of this shape. “I like to paint on a square,” Warhol mused,

“because you don’t have to decide whether it should be longer-longer or shorter-shorter or

longer-shorter; it’s just square…. When I have to think about it, I know the picture is wrong.

And sizing is a form of thinking, and coloring too. My instinct about painting says, ‘If you don’t

think about it, it’s right.’ As soon as you have to decide and choose, it’s wrong. And the more

you decide about, the more wrong it gets.”11 Warhol’s interest in presenting square images may

also have been motivated by his love for television, which presented its content in such a format

until the 1980s. As has been shown, however, Warhol often had to crop existing photographs in

unusual ways to achieve the desired shape, much like movies are adapted for presentation on

television.

Business Art

Andy Warhol was used to working within the contractual arrangements required by

commissioned work. He called it “business art.”12 Cowboys and Indians would prove

significantly more complicated and contentious than any other Warhol project.13 Edmond

Gaultney came up with the idea for Cowboys and Indians and approached investment banker

11 Warhol, Philosophy, 134-5.12 Andy Warhol, From A to B and Back Again: The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (London: Pan Books Ltd.,

1976) 88.13 Jay Shriver, interview by author, 19 April 2005, via telephone.

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Kent Klineman in the early 1980s. Gaultney originally proposed a portfolio of American Indian

images. Klineman believed a portfolio called Cowboys and Indians would be more marketable.14

This would be the first of many publishing decisions Klineman would make in shaping the

finished product. Warhol gave Kent Klineman final approval for all images in the suite.15 This

provision was not a standard part of Warhol’s art contracts, and would soon prove to be a source

of great frustration to Warhol and his staff. Klineman used his right to final approval excessively

throughout the creation of the portfolio, causing publishing delays and considerable headaches

for many of those involved.16 The contracting parties signed an agreement for the production of

the Cowboys and Indians portfolio in early 1985. As publishers, Gaultney and Klineman were

responsible for researching potential print subjects and developing a pool of images for Warhol’s

consideration, and for obtaining the necessary rights for reproduction.

Sources for Images

Andy Warhol, in collaboration with his publishers, selected some of the most powerful

iconic images of the American West for inclusion in his Western portfolio. Despite the title,

Cowboys and Indians there are no working cowboys in the portfolio; rather “cowboy” serves as a

simile of “western” for Americans, and as a foil to contrast in meaningful way with “Indian.”

The duality set in these images gets to the push-pull, good-bad, ying-yang within American

culture. Warhol’s notion of “Cowboys and Indians” strived to reveal the essence of what it

means to be American.

14 Kent Klineman, interview by author, 11 February 2005, via telephone.15 Klineman interview by author. 16 Fremont and Shriver interviews by author.

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John Wayne

A review or art auction sales showed that John Wayne is the most popular print among

the ten images selected for the final edition. The source for this image is a black and white

portrait photograph of the actor originally used to publicize the 1962 film, The Man Who Shot

Liberty Valance. Directed by the legendary John Ford, the film starred Jimmy Stewart as a

young attorney who finds himself overmatched in a gunfight with an outlaw. John Wayne plays

an open range cowboy who intervenes and shoots the villain from the shadows, without the

knowledge of Stewart or the townspeople who make Stewart a hero. Although built upon a lie,

Stewart’s newfound reputation as the “man who shot Liberty Valance,” propels him into a

political career as a territorial governor and eventually a U.S. Senator. At the end of the film,

when Stewart confesses the story to a group of reporters, a pundit delivers one of the greatest

lines ever written into a western script. “This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact,

print the legend."17

The John Wayne image gives viewers the sense of familiarity and confidence that

Americans have come to associate with the West. Wayne’s pistol is drawn and ready, but not yet

pointed at anyone. His broad-brimmed hat and the shade it provides, hides the actor’s eyes from

view. The colors selected for the regular edition print are relatively realistic, brown hat, dark

peach skin, red and blue shirt, and yellow bandanna. The trial proofs illustrated in the print

catalog raisonné show that the artist considered much lighter skin tones, as well as a black shirt

and hat. But even Warhol must have struggled with presenting “The Duke” to the world in a

black hat.18 17 The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, dir. John Ford, 123 min, Paramount Pictures, 1962, film. 18 The Andy Warhol print catalogue raisonné illustrates three of the 36 trial proofs produced for each image

in Cowboys and Indians, these are the only images available for analysis and are the basis for the comparisons

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Annie Oakley

The image of Annie Oakley, the famous female sharpshooter with Buffalo Bill’s Wild

West show, is based on an anonymous photograph from the 1927 book Annie Oakley by

Courtney Riley Cooper.19 Born Phoebe Moses in Ohio in 1860, Oakley defeated the top male

shooters of her day.20 Oakley is shown in full profile, her hat well back on her head. The

marksmanship medals on her jacket – representing shooting contests she had won around the

world – provided an abstract design around which Warhol experimented during the trial proofing

process. In the final edition print her skin is starkly pale, with only a hint of red lipstick

decorating her face. Her clothing and medals appear in various shades of pink and purple.

Warhol experimented with reversing the image in the trial proofs, which show a fairly narrow

range of skin color and overall palette.

In the edition print Oakley faces to the viewer’s left. The artist’s decision to include a

strong female image in this portfolio suggests a departure from the traditional male-dominated

the histories of the American West and foreshadowed the publication of Patricia Nelson

Limerick’s book Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West (1987), which

ushered in a new academic movement known as “New Western History.” Oakley’s inclusion,

however, may also have been the result of the shooter’s reputation being kept alive by such

popular culture treatments of her legacy as the Broadway musical Annie Get Your Gun, or the

1950s television series loosely based on her life.

described herein.19 Feldman and Schellmann, 3d ed., 273. 20 Glenda Riley, The Life and Legacy of Annie Oakley (Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press,

1994) 3.

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Oakley’s image provides an interesting comparison with Warhol’s most famous

depictions of Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, and Jacqueline Kennedy. All of these women

achieved worldwide fame, the power resident in the images of Monroe, Taylor and Kennedy is

due to the tragic events that befell them. Monroe died young, at the height of her celebrity; while

Taylor had a number of serious illnesses, not to mention multiple husbands; and Kennedy

endured the shocking assignation of her husband, President John F. Kennedy, with grace and

poise.

Oakley, on the other hand, personifies the Cinderella story, rising from poverty to fame

and fortune. When she beat champion marksman Frank Butler in a shooting contest she also

won his heart, and the two married several years later.21 Rather than presenting “pride before the

fall” or “grace under pressure” as seen in the images of Monroe, Taylor and Kennedy, the Annie

Oakley print captures the image of a young woman balancing the confidence of succeeding in a

man’s domain with delicate femininity.

General George Armstrong Custer

Mathew Brady’s famous 1865 photograph of General George Armstrong Custer as a

Civil War general provides the basis for Warhol’s General Custer.22 Perhaps the most famous

western figure of all, Custer had received significant acclaim as a Union cavalryman during the

Civil War. His death at in the Battle of the Little Big Horn (1876) brought him immortality. The

source photograph captures Custer’s aloof and confident persona. Warhol did nothing to dull

these qualities in his printmaking. Although the officer’s uniform in at least two of the trial

21 ibid., 18. 22 Feldman and Schellmann, 3d ed., 273.

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proofs is close to its authentic blue color, in the edition print the General is clad in a white coat

with gold buttons and insignia. His hat and bandana are bright red.

Despite Warhol’s claims that his images contained no social commentary, one cannot

view this image without considering Custer’s historical reputation, which varies from fool to

martyred hero depending on the commentator. Warhol clearly sides with the hero worshippers

by enrobing Custer in saintly white. The depth of Warhol’s devotion to the Custer mystique may

be reflected in the artist’s diary entry for October 3, 1984. “I don’t love my name so much. I

always wanted to change it,” Warhol noted. “When I was little I was going to take

‘Morningstar.’ Andy Morningstar. I thought it was so beautiful. And I came so close to actually

using it for my career. This was before the book, Marjorie Morningstar. I just liked the name, it

was my favorite.”23

Ironically, Warhol may have encountered the name in connection with George Armstrong

Custer, whom several Indian tribes referred to as “Son of the Morning Star.” Publisher Kent

Klineman, co-publisher of Warhol’s Cowboys and Indians suite, recalled the artist being a “huge

Custer fan” and lobbied to include the General in the series; even though, Klineman felt Custer

was “an idiot and an overused cliché.”24 Infatuated with celebrity, Warhol likely dreamed of

meeting or even being George Armstrong Custer.

Northwest Coast Mask

Northwest Coast Mask is based on photographs taken by Warhol during his 1985 visit to

the Gustave Heye Collection in the Museum of the American Indians in New York City. The

23 Hackett, 605.24 Klineman interview by author.

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museum purchased this Northwest Coast mask, attributed to the Kwakiutl tribe of Vancouver

Island, British Columbia, in 1926.25 Indian Art in America called the mask: “Another fine

example of a changing-face mask; in the illustration it is closed to show the outer face. By

pulling the strings, an inner mask is revealed. The mask represents a man’s head surrounded by

two mythical fish.”26

The edition print for Northwest Coast Mask retains the general values of the artifact,

rendered in reds and blues. The original mask, however, has a more widely varied color scheme,

containing yellow, red, white, green and black. The mask depicted in the print is also

substantially shorter than the real object. To retain a square picture plane Warhol had to crop the

fish tails that extend well beyond the chin of the mask. Trial proofs for this image exhibit color

palettes ranging from pink with green to brown and orange. One of the proofs also contains an

orange background rather than the stark white generally used on all the prints in the series.

Kachina Dolls

Kachina Dolls is actually a double image of a single doll based on photographs taken by

Warhol during his 1985 visit to the Museum of the American Indians. This treatment is

reminiscent of the artist’s early works that featured multiple images of the same object. In this

case a double image may have been needed to fill the square surface. According to the museum

catalog, the kachina represents, “Tumas, the Mother of Tunup who flogs children in the Powamu

festival.” The museum collected the kachina, of Hopi origin, in Oraibi, Arizona, in 1929, from

25 Patricia Nietfeld, Suitland, Maryland, to the author, via e-mail 4 April 2005, hard copy in the collection of the Booth Western Art Museum. National Museum of the American Indian catalog card number 149626.000,

26 Frederick J. Dockstader, Indian Art in America: The Arts and Crafts of the North American Indian (New York: Promontory Press, 1973) np., plate 91. Dockstader was the Director of the Museum of the American Indian at the time this book was published.

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Fred Harvey, the leading tour operator in the Southwest during the early 20th century.27 The

edition print shows one of the duplicate kachina in white and the other in pink, both with gray

shadows. Two of the three trial proofs illustrated in the print catalog raisonné exhibit a similar

color pattern, while the third contains one green image and one pink, with much heavier and

darker shadows.

Plains Indian Shield

Plains Indian Shield is based on a Crow artifact made of buffalo hide photographed by

Warhol during his 1985 visit to the Museum of the American Indians. The Museum obtained the

object in 1909 as part of the J.B. Linde Collection.28 One of the most important Crow artifacts in

existence, this war-medicine shield belonged to Chief Arapoosh at the time of the Lewis and

Clark expedition. “It was used as a talisman,” writes Frederick Dockstader in Indian Art in

America. “When rolled along the ground, success was assured if it stopped face up. But if it fell

face down, the project would be abandoned as foredoomed to failure. The design represents the

Moon, which came to the owner in human form during a vision and gave him this shield.”29

The edition print depicts a mostly yellow shield, with a white stripe down the center,

wider at the top than the bottom. Light blue and black crescents near the top of the shield may

symbolize the Moon. Two bison are shown in black and a red feather with a black tip extends

beyond the visual boundary of the shield. One of the trial proofs is very similar to the edition

print, but with a pink rather than red feather. Other proofs appear as negative images, with the

darks and lights reversed when compared to the edition print.

27 Nietfeld e-mail to author, National Museum of the American Indian catalog card number, 090939.000 28 ibid., National Museum of the American Indian catalog card number, 024426.000 29 Dockstader, np., plate 197.

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Mother and Child

Mother and Child appropriates a black and white postcard image entitled “Bright Eyes

Squaw and Papoose” by an anonymous photographer.30 The absence of color in the source image

left Warhol free to experiment with color, without any pre-conceived idea of what the finished

product should look like. The rather conservative edition print contains a realistic color scheme

of dark pink skin, green dress, and bright, multi-colored blanket. All trial proofs illustrated in the

print catalog raisonné are relatively similar to the edition print, with only slight variations in skin

color and the saturation of the color on the blanket noticeable.

Several of the serigraphs in Cowboys and Indians, particularly those created from small

source images such as Mother and Child, show the printing dots created by enlarging the original

postcard to the size of the finished prints. While the existence of these dots is often seen in Pop

Art, particularly the work of Roy Lichtenstein, it is not as readily observed in much of Warhol’s

output. A close examination of Mother and Child reveals a strong pattern of dots inherited from

the original image, which actually help strengthen Warhol’s interpretation, giving the final print

a beaded appearance.

Geronimo

Geronimo is based on a famous photograph taken in 1887 by Ben Wittick, one of the

earliest professional photographers in the Southwest.31 The original photograph shows Geronimo

kneeling with a rifle held diagonally across his chest. In Warhol’s tightly cropped version of the

image, however, the old warrior’s face fills the page. The old warrior stares straight at the

30 Feldman and Schellmann, 3d ed., 273. The terms squaw and papoose are no longer considered appropriate for use in referring to Indian women and children.

31 Colophon accompanying the Cowboys and Indians portfolio, 1986, produced by Gaultney-Klineman Art, Inc., New York City.

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viewer, with an expression that some read as fierce determination and others, deep sadness.

Regardless, the emotion is both visible and intense. The photographer snapped the pose shortly

after the Apache headman was captured for the final time. Denied his independence, Geronimo’s

elder years were spent selling autographs, pictures of himself, and the buttons off his vest to

souvenir seekers.

The edition print shows Geronimo with a ruddy ochre-colored face, red shirt and dark

black hair, all of which draw attention to the whites of his eyes. The trial proofs for this image

exhibit a wide range of colors. One suggests a photographic negative, while another shows

Geronimo in a green shirt with bright pink skin. The most arresting image of all, however, shows

the warrior with a deep blue face, as if he were an alien from another planet. Warhol may also

have employed the hue to represent the sadness surrounding the plight of the Indian leader. In all

three of the proofs the whites of the eyes are the focal point and dare the viewer to return the

subject’s unblinking gaze.

Teddy Roosevelt

Teddy Roosevelt is based on George Gardiner Rockwood’s 1898 photograph of Theodore

Roosevelt in his Rough Rider uniform.32 Cropped from a full-length portrait, Warhol’s image is

again a tight headshot, with the top of Roosevelt’s hat touching the edge of the paper.

Roosevelt’s inclusion in this portfolio is a bit curious. While he did own a ranch in Dakota

Territory and actually lived the life of the cowboy for nearly two years; this experience was not

the source of his fame. Instead of drawing on Roosevelt’s cowboy period, Warhol depicts him in

the military uniform in which he earned ever-lasting fame for a charge up San Juan Hill, not in

32 Feldman and Schellmann, 3d ed., 273.

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the West, but in Cuba during the Spanish American War. Many of the Rough Riders he led,

however, were cowboys, specifically recruited by Roosevelt for their hardiness and

horsemanship. Moreover, Roosevelt’s romantic writings about the winning of the West had

helped create the cowboy myth.

The edition print shows the war hero dressed in a light blue jacket and hat, with a black

face that hides much of its detail. Publisher Kent Klineman later claimed credit for Roosevelt

being shown in black face in the edition print. Klineman said it was meant to counteract what he

believed was the condescending image presented by a statue at the American Museum of Natural

History that portrays the former president with his hand on the shoulder of a black man.33 The

trial proofs show his original khaki uniform reproduced in various shades of blue and gray, while

the skin tone varies from gray to light orange.

Indian Head Nickel

Indian Head Nickel is based on the 1913 U.S. nickel designed by sculptor James Earle

Fraser, best known for his classic sculpture of Indian defeat, End of the Trail.34 The edition print

shows another example of Warhol’s social commentary as the word “Liberty” appears boldly

lettered in the line of sight of the Indian chief. Whereas the coloring of the edition print

resembles the dull chrome finish of the actual coin, trial proofs exhibit more adventurous colors

such as orange, pink, and black rendered on a variety of colored backgrounds.

33 Klineman interview by author.34 Cowboys and Indians colophon.

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Rejected Trial Proofs

Andy Warhol had the tremendous gift of understanding the defining myths of the baby

boomer generation. His gift was the ability to identify images that united groups of disparate

individuals in a common mind and presenting these images before his audience as the essence of

their being.35 With Cowboys and Indians this gift is confirmed by looking at the range of western

subjects Warhol chose for the suite. Custer, John Wayne and Geronimo certainly epitomize the

general public’s iconic view of the American West, while the inclusion of images of two women

and a soldier-president who had relatively brief experiences in the West are in tune with a less

traditional, more contemporary view of western history. The artist did not, however, select one of

the most exciting images of the lot, Action Picture, based on a 1903 painting of a cavalry charge

by Charles Schreyvogel. Asked why this image was not included in the final edition, Kent

Klineman said it didn’t fit. Warhol, he continued, was generally a portrait painter, whether his

subject was a person, an object or a building.

A closer examination of each of the chosen images proves this point. Presented against

stark white backgrounds, all of the regular edition prints are portraits and all appear flat, lacking

modeling and depth. Only Kachina Dolls shows significant depth, indicated by the dark

shadows. The shadows cast by the hats of Teddy Roosevelt and John Wayne, and the rough

outline of the nickel coin, only hint at a third dimension. Observing the depth inherent in Action

Picture or War Bonnet Indian, one can see why these images would have looked out of place

when it came time to assemble the final portfolio. It is also easy to see why only one side of the

nickel needed to be included. The choice might have been as easy as a coin toss.

35 Danto, in Feldman and Schellmann, 3d ed., 9.

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Deciding whether or not to include Sitting Bull in the suite proved difficult. At the time of

Warhol’s October, 1985, trip to the Museum of the American Indian and the publication of

advertising brochures, Sitting Bull was part of the portfolio.36 By June 1986, however, there were

indications an image of Geronimo would be added to the mix.37 In the end only one chief was

included and the powerful, emotion filled countenance of Geronimo won out over the taciturn

portrait of Sitting Bull.

Warhol told Alvin Josephy that the image of William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody would be

included in the finished portfolio.38 The presence of the legendary scout, pony express rider and

showman, certainly would have made sense. Perhaps more than any other individual, Cody was

responsible for developing and presenting the myth of the Old West to the world through the

imagery and spectacle of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show, which greatly influenced western

movie makers. Why Cody is not a part of Warhol’s roundup of western icons is a mystery.

Perhaps he was deemed passé or maybe none of the scores of photographs and other images of

the “Great Scout” suited the artist. Whatever the case, his absence from the portfolio is notable.

Photographs from the opening reception at the Museum of the American Indians show

that a Mimbres bowl was also considered for the Cowboys and Indians suite. Why this artifact

was not included in the final edition cannot be determined with certainty. Warhol intended to

use only two or three artifact-based images in the suite.39 Perhaps, he felt that the bowl’s shape

and three-dimensional nature were too difficult to capture, or that the visual impact of the object

was less powerful than the other objects. The publisher may have considered the bowl’s 14th

36 Josephy, 43. 37 Klineman letter to Cochran, 1 July 1986. 38 Josephy, 43.39 ibid., 44.

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century origins too far removed from the rest of the images, which date from the late 19th and

early 20th centuries.

30


Trial Proofs:

31

Action Picture Buffalo Nickel

Sitting Bull III War Bonnet Indian


Endangered Species:

32

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