Rendered in serial impressions across three panels, The American Indian (Russell Means) from 1976 is a stirring synthesis of Andy Warhol's unparalleled devotion to popular culture and his adoption of political imagery in his artistic output. Conceived as a project with West Coast dealer and Ace Gallery owner Doug Chrismas, the present triptych comprises three of the twenty-six paintings that Warhol made of this scale. Produced with Warhol's semi-mechanical silkscreen technique, the richly expressive and painterly surface the present work distinguishes it as among the very best from the series. Rendered in variegated hues of vibrant pinks, rich plums, umber, mauve, and sienna, The American Indian (Russell Means) echoes the palette of the rusty mesas and rugged landscape of the American West, making these particular impressions of Russell Means especially resonant. Executed in 1976, three years after the siege at Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota brought the struggles of Native peoples into the forefront, a cause which activist Russell Means championed, the present portrait takes on a dual significance under Warhol's watch—an emblem of a contemporary sociopolitical crisis and an American archetype with far-reaching cultural resonance— The American Indian (Russell Means) makes manifest Warhol’s profound contribution to the history of art. Means' focused gaze and Warhol's aestheticized mode of representation offer a t.mes -capsule not only into 1970s popular culture but also into the longue durée of American history. Held in the same private collects ion for over forty years, the importance and global resonance of this work are emphasized by its exhibition internationally shortly after its production: notably, Geneva's Musee d'art et d'histoire de Geneve from 1977-78 followed by Zurich's Kunsthaus and Humblebaek's Louisiana Museum in 1978.
"The Indian is a conventional accessory of the American scene, for the same reason as its counterpart, the cowboy, or as Coca-Cola, the electric chair, the movie star. The title of the series, moreover, 'The American Indian' takes this anonymous and communal dimension into account. At the same t.mes , however, the Indian is the face of a real political problem, of a singular minority, and beyond that of all the American minorities."
In February of 1973, roughly 200 members of the Oglala Lakota tribe and other supporters of the American Indian Movement conducted a seventy-one-day siege of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, in protest of the U.S. government's treatment of Native American "the infamous site of an 1890 massacre of the Lakota by a U.S. Cavalry regiment"—as a protest of the U.S. government's alleged tribal mistreatment. Among the leaders of that protest was Lakota activist Russell Means, a prominent figure in the American Indian Movement and activist for the rights of Native Americans. Highly publicized, this protest generated both media scrutiny and celebrity activism—it was that same year that Marlon Brando publicly rejected his Oscar win for "Best Actor," citing Hollywood's contribution to "degrading the Indian and making mockery of his character, describings [him] as savage, hostile, and evil." (Ibid., p. 494) Three years later, Warhol would create his highly acclaimed series of portraits.
The American Indian (Russell Means) simultaneously proffers Means as a cultural icon and essentializes him, flattening his individuality to the character type of an "American Indian." Means, here clad in traditional Native American dress, appears in three-quarters view. Though he positions his body away from the viewer, he turns to meet their gaze with a solemn expression. There is a thoughtfulness to his expression; his right eyebrow raised slightly as if to acknowledge viewers' presence, but he bears no hint of a smile. His unflinching stature carries a gravitas that bespeaks his authority within his community, and he consumes the entirety of the canvas, demanding viewers' full attention. Cropping the portrait to Means' bust—and therefore adopting the legacy of bust-portraiture, a form typically reserved for Western history's great leaders—elevates Means' status for Western viewers. Doing so also lends a sense of celebrity to Means' image, for it places the portrait in line with Warhol's many portraits of celebrities and cultural icons, nearly all of whom he removes from their context and crops into a high-keyed, flat backdrop. Warhol emphasizes Means' dominant facial features: his defined bone structure and his piercing, focused gaze. Unlike many of his other series of portraits—such as Marilyn, Mao, and Ladies and Gentlemen—which he decorates with makeup-like face paints, Warhol renders Means' face with washes of color.
Rainer Michael Mason explains that the series' subject falls in line with Warhol's oeuvre as a whole, for Warhol "once more adopted a theme that is simultaneously captivating and banal. The Indian is a conventional accessory of the American scene for the same reason as its counterpart, the cowboy...The title of the series, moreover, 'The American Indian' takes this anonymous and communal dimension into account. At the same t.mes , however, the Indian is the face of a real political problem." (Ibid.) Despite its thematic continuity, in The American Indian (Russell Means) the loosely painted surface illustrates a shift in Warhol's practice in the 1970s, which David Bourdon characterizes by "a new interest in painterly painting," unlike the "textureless surfaces" of his portraits of the 1960s. (David Bourdon, Warhol, New York, 1989, p. 330) Tending towards the painterly tradition, the present work sees Warhol apply chromatic shades across a spectrum of deep reds and browns to compose Means's face, recalling Matisse's 1905 Green Stripe, which similarly evoked an uncanny sense of light, shadow, and volume without traditional shading techniques.
Given the widespread trope of face paint in stereotypes of Native Americans, Warhol's refrain from stylizing Means' face with various tones of paint is particularly curious. Means commented on the significance of war paint in Native American culture, explaining it "was put on only those willing to die," so the figures who donned such paint "were all the soldiers, the defenders inside Wounded Knee." (Neil Printz and Sally Kind-Nero, eds., The Andy Warhol Catalogue Raisonné, Vol. 4: Paintings and Sculpture, Late 1974-76, New York, 2014, p. 498) With its dual significance—an emblem of a contemporary sociopolitical crisis and an American archetype with far-reaching cultural resonance—The American Indian (Russell Means) makes manifest Warhol's profound contribution to the history of art. Unwaveringly devoted to examining and revealing contemporary culture, Warhol engages with here with the political zeitgeist, American heroism and American history. In this rare composition of three, Warhol subtly manipulates the image of Means uniquely on each panel, challenging the viewer to question this fabricated representation, focusing on the personality of Means and all that he may represent.
The rich painterly texture and thick application of warm hues that subtly replicate across the three canvases distinguish The American Indian (Russell Means) as an exceptional example of the series. The shades of pink, umber and mauve are beautifully matched as they undulate throughout each panel. A fascination of American culture, The Wild West, cowboys and Indians, became central to American culture providing new archetypes of American myth, yet they proliferated stereotypes. The progenitor of Pop, the arbiter of Consumerism, Andy Warhol artistically examined the Wild West, and it notably became a source of his inspiration in his pictures of Elvis. Although he somet.mes s used these subjects to undermine the Machismo of the West, here the apolitical, ambiguous artist produces The American Indian (Russell Means) an image which directly explores the discrepancies between content and context, paying homage to the political activism of Russell Means and particularly his significance during the 1970s. Captivating in scale, evocative subject and unique composition, The American Indian (Russell Means) embodies Warhol's mastery of his singular technique and profound fascination with popular culture.
