Cigar Store Indian c. 1937

Editor: Here we have Frances Lichten's "Cigar Store Indian" from around 1937, rendered in watercolor. It has an almost folksy feel to it, a naive perspective. What's your read on it? Curator: Naive, yes, but consider too that these figures themselves – Cigar Store Indians – are already copies. They’re twice removed, like whispers traveling down a long hall. And Lichten is copying something meant to *sell*. I wonder if she felt like she was copying a copy of a stereotype? Editor: That's interesting! So, are you thinking Lichten might be making a comment about commercialism, or the representation of Indigenous people at that time? Curator: Possibly, or maybe simply documenting a dying piece of Americana. There’s something elegiac in that flattened perspective, as if Lichten is paying her respects to a vanishing object. Editor: I didn't initially consider that. Do you think she was aware of the loaded history behind these figures? Curator: Impossible to say for certain, but I'd wager that any artist worth her salt at that time would have sensed the underlying tension. Look at how carefully she renders the feathers, almost with a mournful reverence. Does it change how you view the artwork now? Editor: Absolutely! Now I see the sadness that maybe was hidden in the stereotypical presentation. Thank you! Curator: A pleasure! It seems, at times, we find art as much as it finds us.