Cigar Store Indian c. 1938

Charles Bowman’s ‘Cigar Store Indian’ painting is rendered in muted earthy tones. I imagine Bowman, brush in hand, circling the form of a wooden sculpture. It’s like he’s trying to translate its three-dimensionality onto a flat surface. He’s carefully attending to its every curve and hollow. I wonder, what was Bowman thinking as he painted this? Perhaps he felt a need to record these figures because they were already vanishing from street corners. See the wood grain Bowman meticulously recreated—the way it catches the light? It’s almost as though he’s trying to preserve the object. Artists do this all the time, you know—we see something fading and try to hold onto it with paint. We capture the light, the form, the feeling, and then pass it on. It’s a conversation across time, each artist answering another, each brushstroke an echo.