Old Frontier Stuff

     This is a true anomaly for Sharp. Although many of his figure studies are sufficiently static to qualify as still lifes, this is one of a very few examples of the artist exclusively posing inanimate objects in a painting.

 

     The items Sharp selected here to freeze in time were almost all Indian-related. The choice to portray objects as opposed to actual Indian people may have been part of his decision at the time of the painting’s execution, 1927, to begin phasing out Indians as subjects. Here, he replaces them with relics of the past … substitutes for the beloved living, breathing models of his acquaintance.

 

     The painting made its debut at an exhibition titled Indians and Other Paintings at Cincinnati’s Traxel Art Galleries that opened in November 1927. A review of the exhibition in the Cincinnati Enquirer noticed the difference from earlier exhibitions. Here were many more flower paintings than ever before and works that the reviewer felt concentrated on the “ancient Indian costumes” and much “priceless” and “authentic paraphernalia.” “Mr. Sharp,” the reviewer concluded, “has that particular ability to make true, detailed copies of all these things as well as fine portraits of the Indians.” (Enquirer, 12/4/27)

 

Peter H. Hassrick