Cigar Store Indian c. 1937

Arthur Mathews made this watercolor painting, "Cigar Store Indian," and it's interesting how the flat, slightly faded colors give a sense of something solid, like painted wood. It feels less like a painting of a sculpture, and more like a drawing of a real person, with a kind of stiffness and formality. Look how the marks aren't blended; you can see individual strokes of the brush, especially in the skirt. The zig-zag patterns and bright colors are almost like a cartoon version of Native American design. This adds to the work's overall sense of artifice, but also makes you think about how we interpret different cultures and histories through simplified images. It reminds me a bit of early Hockney with its playful, almost naive approach to form and color, but also it's completely different. It's a piece that holds the viewer in a state of unresolved looking.