Cigar Store Indian c. 1941

Violet Hartenstein, who lived a long life, painted "Cigar Store Indian" with watercolor on paper. I can see her, patiently layering these translucent washes, coaxing color out of the page. What was she thinking about when she made this? Was she trying to capture the texture of the original carving, the way the light hit those feathers? Maybe she was interested in how the colors play off each other: the bright yellow of the figure's tunic against the muted red of the blanket, that vivid turquoise and indigo. And there’s this flat, almost naive quality to the rendering, that reminds me of some folk art traditions. Maybe she saw the beauty in the simple, unadorned lines, finding a kind of honest expression in the directness of the image. You can sense Hartenstein's connection to the subject, but also to the art of painting itself, and that's what really makes it sing.