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Andy WarholCowboys and Indians
Exhibition Concept
Exhibition Goal 1: Introduce Andy Warhol’s Cowboys and Indians portfolio to the members and guests of the Briscoe Western Art Museum.
For many, Andy Warhol’s interest in Western subjects will come as a surprise, and seem out of character with the artist’s public image.
Andy Wahol was the undisputed leader of American Pop Art, a movement still hotly
debated by critics and others, many of whom believe that Warhol’s practice of copying
photographs onto canvas was not art at all. Supporters of American Pop Art exalt the ways in
which Warhol and his colleagues used household items, advertising images, and other “low” art
forms, along with commercial printing techniques to democratize art, and force Americans to
reflect on the materialistic society in which they live. Pop Art adherents contradicted the
premises of Modernism in the 1960s, paving the way for the Postmodernist revisions and
reactions in American art history in the 1980s.
Rejecting some tenants of Modernism in favor of a more traditional and
representational approach, Warhol’s Cowboys and Indians suite linked the American Pop
art and Western art genres more closely than a cursory review would reveal. In contrast to
Modernism, the American Pop Art movement reestablished respectability for representational
art, and, in so doing, established a link to Western art. The connection to Western art came when
pop artists reintroduced icons in painting, which many modernists had attempted to banish.
The 1986 edition is noteworthy in Andy Warhol’s late career, because it was the last
major print project completed before his death in 1987. Warhol created Cowboys and
Indians during the mid-1980s, arguably his most prolific period. The artist saw a re-emergence
of critical and financial success after he teamed up with Rupert Jasen Smith to produce thematic
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Andy WarholCowboys and Indians
print series in the late 1970s. The portfolio included ten color screen prints on Lenox Museum
Board; each signed in pencil, and each an edition of 250.
Cowboys and Indians suite made a connection between mainstream modern art and
Western art; despite the beliefs of many in the art community that mainstream modern art
created during the second half of the twentieth century is the direct antithesis of what has come
to be known as Western art. Warhol embraced a new aesthetic emerging in the 1980s that
interpreted a modern “New West” as the cradle of mass culture. He paid tribute to “cowboys”
and “Indians” as archetypal American symbols. Warhol recognized the aesthetic validity of a
modern New West and he found new ways to express it; similar to, but different from the
historical paintings of Alfred Jacob Miller, Thomas Moran, Albert Bierstadt, Frederic
Remington, and Charles Marion Russell. As each generation reinterprets the past to serve its own
needs, Andy Warhol reinterpreted the myths and histories of the American West for the baby-
boomer generation that came of age in the 1960s.
Warhol’s creation of a series of Western American images represents an important
development within contemporary Western art. It should come as no surprise that pop artist
paid homage to the mythic American versions of Western history in printing the Cowboys and
Indians suite. Reminiscent of a childhood game, familiar to most Americans in the 1980s,
Cowboys and Indians suggested a classic American showdown of archetypal characters from the
stories of America’s westward expansion. For an artist as in tune with the American psyche, it
seems natural that Warhol would eventually turn his attention to the experience many historians
believe was the source of America exceptionalism.
The artist’s decision to undertake his own investigation of western subjects is
important. Through his choice of subjects, Warhol gives viewers a glimpse at the issues he
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Andy WarholCowboys and Indians
believes worthy of discussion. By including a selection of four relatively obscure artifacts from
the collection of the George Gustave Heye Museum of the American Indian in New York City,
Warhol meant for Cowboys and Indians to stimulate contemporary debate about the status of
American Indians in the United States. Even so, the artist’s provocative selection of images was
fraught with ambiguity; the prints offered reminders of past transgressions against Native
peoples, but no solutions as to how contemporary Americans should address these wrongs.
The artist gathered inspiration from numerous places to create the portfolio.
Warhol’s images of Geronimo, Annie Oakley and Mother and Child were based on familiar
characters from Hollywood adaptations of American history that did not truly represent the real
roles of individuals in history. He comingled these icons with other well-known portraits of
American “heroes”–John Wayne, Teddy Roosevelt, and General George Custer. His images of
Annie Oakley and John Wayne were derived from publicity photos. General Custer and
Theodore Roosevelt were inspired by portraits by Mathew Brady and George Gardner Rookwod,
respectively.
Warhol juxtaposed his set of recognizable “cowboy” images with a profoundly
different set of “Indian” images derived mostly from museum artifacts. He included a Crow
Indian War-Medicine Shield, Northwest Coast Kwakiutl Mask, Southwestern Hopi Kachina
Doll, and a 1913 U.S. nickel, featuring an Indian head designed by James Earl Fraser, best
known for his classic sculpture of Indian defeat, End of the Trail. Warhol photographed the coin
and Native American artifacts himself, using the collections of the George Gustave Heye
Museum of the American Indian in New York City. This selection was unique in that no other
Warhol portfolio included portraits of objects. The dualities and ambiguities inherent in
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Andy WarholCowboys and Indians
Warhol’s selection of images resulted in much speculation and ironic commentary about
America’s collective mythologizing of the historic West.
How did Americans feel about themselves and their country when confronted by
Warhol’s images in Cowboys and Indians? This series of images prompted Americans to ask
whether such representations glorified the West and the presumed leadership qualities that
enabled non-Indian settlers to appropriate Native people’s lands; or, whether they serve as artful
commentaries on just such self-satisfied presumption on the part of citizens who know nothing
about the Native peoples that were displaced in order to foster the ideals of ‘progress’ supported
as a national American vision.
Cowboys and Indians broke new ground in the visual portrayal of historic and
mythic icons of the American West. It was the first and only Warhol portfolio to combine
iconic portraits with totemic objects. It was also the only portfolio for which the artist created
trial proofs for more images than would be included in the final edition. For other projects,
Warhol decided which images would be in edition before creating trial proofs. The extra trial
proofs indicate the problematic nature of this project over the nearly two years it took to
complete.
By investigating the myths and histories of the American West, Warhol joined a
long line of contemporary artists that attempted to capture the region’s essence in their
work. Wading into the ocean of western imagery produced for pulp magazines, dime novels,
movies, television shows, fine art and magazine illustrations, Warhol distilled this imagery down
to ten serigraphs reflecting his view of America’s mass culture perceptions of cowboys and
Indians. The portfolio provided a series of historical mirrors through which contemporary
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Andy WarholCowboys and Indians
Americans saw themselves and their own culture in the 1980s. What do you see when looking at
these images today?
Warhol continued his commentary on mass media with Cowboys and Indians,
recognizing the importance of the “icon” in the modern, advertisement-saturated world.
The artist’s prints demonstrated the ways in which artificial imagery affected how Americans
understood history through popular interpretations of the American West. Rather than portraying
American Indians within their historical landscapes or cowboys in their authentic forms, the
artist chose to portray popular, romanticized versions of the American West. The West he
selected to represent was a familiar one to most people in the 1980s that could still be found in
novels, films, and TV series.
Andy Warhol: Cowboys and Indians
General George Custer – Plains Indian Shield
John Wayne – Northwest Coast Mask
Teddy Roosevelt –Kachina Dolls
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Andy WarholCowboys and Indians
Annie Oakley – Mother and Child
1913 Indian Head Nickel – Geronimo
Checklist:
6
General Custer Plains Indian Shield
John Wayne Northwest Coast Mask
Andy WarholCowboys and Indians
7
Teddy Roosevelt Kachina Dolls
Annie Oakley Mother and Child
Andy WarholCowboys and Indians
8
1913 Indian Head Nickel Geronimo
Andy WarholCowboys and Indians
Methods of Interpretation
Ambiguity is a key word in Andy Warhol’s artwork. The title Cowboys and Indians, a
reference to the familiar children’s game, is something of a misnomer, because several of the
portfolio images are neither cowboys nor Indians.
There is a push-pull element or that duality juxtaposed within the title, Cowboys and
Indians. Warhol’s Hollywood Western images reflect strong and aggressive, masculine cowboy
culture through portraits of John Wayne, Teddy Roosevelt, General Custer, Annie Oakley, and a
1913 Indian Head Nickel. In contrast, the artist represented Native American culture through
images of Geronimo with a Mother and Child, and a series of three totemic museum artifacts,
including Northwest Coast Mask, Kachina Dolls and Plains Indian War Shield.1
Cowboys and Indians series is significant in its illumination of America’s collective
mythicizing of the West. Consisting of various calculated juxtapositions, the series forces the
viewer to reconsider the concept of Western “hero” through portrayals of silent heroes of Native
American cultures. The first print in the series, 1913 Indian Head Nickel, reproduces in silvery
tone the familiar noble profile of an American Indian, which formerly appeared on the U.S. five-
cent coin. In contrast to the Indian’s fierce nobility is the taciturn self-satisfaction of General
Custer, his arms folded and gaze directed toward the distance.2
In Cowboys and Indians, Warhol brings his – and America’s– deepest associations to
each image, proving just how literate an artist he could be. Through his dispassionate, observant,
and encyclopedic involvement with all aspects of contemporary life, Warhol had an astonishing
capacity to both astonish and challenge his audiences in the 1980s. Hand-drawn lines printed 1 Hough, 79.2 Gallery guide for Works by Warhol from the Cochran Collection, c. 1998, produced by Wesley and Missy
Cochran, in the collection of Wesley Cochran.
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Andy WarholCowboys and Indians
over the images, more deliberate than in earlier print series, accentuate and deepen the weight of
poignancy, intentionality, and urgency these works carry.
Warhol’s subject is the myth of the West, a kit bag of pervasive notions about history,
national identity, sentiment, and heroism. A stew cooked up in the kitchens of Hollywood,
popular literature, and advertising, flavored with insistent tourism and chamber of commerce
boosterism, its main ingredients are the idealization of colonization, glorification of violence,
and a malignant and insidious disregard for racism. Spoons in hand, we are still gathered around
that pot today.
The choice of imagery for ‘Cowboys and Indians’ was Warhol’s, the artist chose the
images that were meaningful to him. A large part of the meaning was their popularity. Warhol’s
series was made for baby boomers, like himself, for whom Roy Rogers fantasies and the
attendant dress code were second nature. 3
Ronald Reagan occupying the White House at the time Warhol produced Cowboys and
Indians may have influenced the image choices for the thematic print series. During the 1980s,
Warhol ruled as the laureate chronicler of Imperial America, its dreams, depredations, disasters,
and eventual self-parody. President Reagan was the poster boy for Warhol’s in-crowd in the
1980s, sitting tall in the presidential saddle and often photographed as such at his Rancho del
Cielo home.
All of this Warhol conveys deadpan without showing any expression or emotion for the
myths and histories of the American West. He leaves nostalgia for American’s past behind in the
dust of old photographs. In place of nostalgia, the artist enables his audience to interpret his
3 Bill Berkson, The Sweet Singer of Modernism and Other Art Writings 1985-2003 (Jamestown, Rhode Island: Qua Books, 2003) 246.
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Andy WarholCowboys and Indians
portraits as simply shapes suspended before our eyes. He and his squeegee work collective
memory to the nub. Then they move on. If bits of grim fact and horror remain, those are in the
eyes of the beholders.4
Arthur Danto, writing in the Warhol catalog raisonné, attempted to identify the reasons
that Warhol’s art resonates so powerfully with Americans. “A community is defined by the
images its members do not have to find out about, but who know their identity and meaning
immediately and intuitively. Everyone in America knew Liz and Jackie, Elvis and Marilyn,
Mickey Mouse and Superman, Campbell’s Soup and Brillo. When this knowledge vanishes, the
culture will have changed profoundly.”5
Such observations apply just as readily to the John Wayne, Geronimo, and General
Custer portraits in the Cowboys and Indians suite. Are these images still a relatively well-known
to many Americans? More obscure figures like Annie Oakley and Teddy Roosevelt, at least
insofar as his association with the American West is concerned, are even less recognizable to the
public. In the same manner, Native American art collectors may appreciate the history, quality
and spirituality of the museum artifacts selected for the portfolio, while the general public may
simply connect with the abstract qualities of their designs.
Warhol’s Cowboys and Indians prints may be characterized as vessels holding collective
memories of an American time and place. The portfolio of ten prints is like a time capsule,
preserving the defining images of an aging population on paper and in ink chosen to withstand
the tests of time. In its own way, the portfolio has a memorial function, looking backward. It
answers to the same impulses as those experienced by artists in preceding generations.6
4 ibid., 246-248.5 Danto, in Feldman and Schellmann, 3d ed., 11.6 ibid., 14.
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Andy WarholCowboys and Indians
The source photographs embody much of the power that the Cowboys and Indians
printing process. Writing in Southwest Profile, not long after Warhol’s death, Nicole Plett saw
the irony of a relatively new artistic media chronicling the end of an era, something the artist
himself might also have recognized. Plett wrote, “Most of the portrait images in the series have
come down to us by way of 19th century photography, a technology that at the time was well
suited to capture the last gasps of the American Wild West.”7
It is ironic that Warhol used a photograph by Mathew Brady in this series. Brady is not
only credited with popularizing photography among the American people, but also with creating
a distinctive style of portraiture of famous people. Cultural historian Alan Tractenberg writes in
Reading American Photographs, “In the crafting the mythos of the public portrait, which
included a public image of the image maker, no American played a greater role than Mathew
Brady.”8
Like Brady, Warhol spent much of his time soliciting celebrities from all walks of life to
sit for portraits at one of his studios, and creating fame for himself, basking in the reflected glow
of the stars he attracted into his sphere of influence. Moreover, the two entrepreneurs ran their
businesses similarly. Neither Brady nor Warhol did much of the physical work required to create
the finished products of their studios; nevertheless, the master’s touch and name were
inescapable.
By referencing conditions and concerns of present-day society through historical imagery
and images of historical objects, Warhol’s Cowboys and Indians prints functioned as modern
historical myths in the American culture of the 1980s. Warhol juxtaposed totems of primitive
7 Plett, 32.8 Alan Trachtenberg, Reading American Photographs: Images as History, Mathew Brady to Walker Evans
(New York: Hill and Wang, 1989) 33.
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Andy WarholCowboys and Indians
cultures with a new system of classification—mass produced imagery—to show how technology
influenced iconography.
The portfolio relied upon artifacts from the Museum of the American Indian in New York
to show how Native American cultures relied upon icons to trigger memories and the stories that
provided the intellectual means of resolving conceptual contradictions or dualities in their
societies. Modern American culture replaced primitive Native American myths with history to
fulfill these functions. History emphasized continuity for modern cultures. The relationships
between the past and present are not simply casual. Modern society insisted that the past be like
the present. Cowboys and Indians demonstrated how concepts of contemporary social
consciousness were embedded in history.
Warhol’s choice of images for Cowboys and Indians says more about American culture
in the 1980s, than it tells us about the historical characters and artifacts depicted in the prints.
Reading Warhol’s prints like other forms of literature may reveal the artist’s coded and
allegorical messages.
When Warhol printed the Cowboys and Indians suite in the 1980s, concerns about
national identity were paramount. Tensions came with the creation of a corporate welfare state,
designed to serve the collective needs of a mass society, and concerns for the rights of
individuals in that society. The Vietnam War, Civil Rights Movement, Watergate scandal, and
the social assimilation of ethnic minorities, all caused anxieties.
Warhol’s Cowboys and Indians challenged the notions of white centrality in
representations of race and ethnicity in the 1980s. Racism was implicit in his celebrations of
national aggrandizement through images of Teddy Roosevelt, General Custer, John Wayne,
Annie Oakley, and the 1913 Indian Head Nickel. Warhol sanctioned white superiority by
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Andy WarholCowboys and Indians
selecting these images to represent America’s territorial expansion, dispossession of Native
peoples, nostalgia for a largely mythologized past, exalted self-reliance, and the positing of
violence as the main solution to personal and societal problems. Despite a wide thematic
reverence for law and order, the glorification of violence in “cowboy” icons ultimately glorified
and glamorized bloodshed as the Western genre’s reason for being.
Warhol’s Cowboys and Indians suite also drew attention to gender relationships in the
1980s. There is a centrality of masculinity in Warhol’s choice of images. These prints idealized
manhood. He chose to portray images of men who feared losing their mastery and identity to
women. Nothing symbolized this idea more significantly than Annie Oakley, associating women
with guns in contrast to the archetypal school marm popularized in Western literature, films and
television. Prairie Madonnas, the other female archetype in Western popular culture, is
reinterpreted by Warhol through the representation of a Native American mother and child.
1.
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
g.
h.
Warhol’s Printmaking Process
Andy Warhol had a unique style of making mono-prints, drawing in pencil, tracing the
lines with ink, and blotting the ink onto the final paper surface. He then made multiple images
from the inked surface to create a wallpaper effect. Known as the most painterly method among
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Andy WarholCowboys and Indians
printmaking techniques, Warhol’s mono-prints are essentially printed paintings. The
characteristic of this method is that no two prints are alike; although the images can be similar.
Warhol hired Rupert Jasen Smith to produce his thematic serigraph series in the late
1970s. Cowboys and Indians was an edition of 250 portfolios containing ten images, each
measuring 36 x 36 inches. In addition, Warhol would often create original artwork, including ten
paintings measuring 60 x 60 inches and another ten measuring 20 x 20 inches. Each print was
signed by the artist and numbered.
Warhol’s process of making serigraphs—silk-screened prints—started with a photograph,
typically a portrait of an individual; however, in the case of the Cowboys and Indians suite, the
artist used images of artifacts in the collection of the Museum of the American Indian in New
York. This was the first and only series in which Warhol included images of objects. Warhol
used each source photograph to create a drawing. The artist used an overhead projector to help
him enlarge the source image to the desired size, so that he could trace its basic outline. He used
positive, negative, and half-tone photographs of the source images in making decisions about
colors and values for the final print. Then, the artist and his assistant prepared a screen for the
drawing that outlined the final print and each color used on the final print. Each screen was used
to apply color to a piece of paper the size of the finished print.
Experimenting with color, Warhol and Smith created multiple trial proofs for each image.
Warhol sold the trial proofs when he released each new series. From the original pool including
dozens of images, the artist selected fourteen images to make trial proofs. Warhol and Smith
produced trial proofs to illustrate the range of color options that might be used for a particular
image. The trial proof selected for reproduction in the suite is known as the edition print. Never
before had Warhol tested more than the final ten images selected for an edition. The creation of
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Andy WarholCowboys and Indians
these additional images was another anomaly making the Cowboys and Indians series different
from other Warhol works.
This section will include the four trial proof prints: Sitting Bull, Action Picture, Indian
with War Bonnet, and the 1913 Bison Nickel, the flipside of the Indian Head Nickel included in
the series. Please note that the 1913 Indian Head Nickel is a design motif repeated in the
architecture bordering the lobby and mezzanine of the Briscoe Western Art Museum. These four
images were rejected for the final edition of the Cowboys and Indians portfolio. The Buffalo
Nickel (verso of the 1913 Indian Head nickel); Action Picture, based on the 1903 Charles
Schreyvogel painting Breaking Through the Lines, owned by the Gilcrease Museum of Tulsa,
Oklahoma; War Bonnet Indian, appropriated from a publicity photograph for an unknown
western movie; and Sitting Bull, based on a photograph by Orlando Goff, a pioneer Dakota
photographer. Only 36 unique trial proofs of each of these rejected images exist, although there
is still some confusion over this fact.9
The Warhol print catalog raisonné indicates there was an additional printing of Sitting
Bull images, beyond the 36 trial proofs. There is no mention of how many were printed as they
were neither numbered nor signed by the artist. The Warhol Foundation still holds a large
quantity of these prints, indicating that perhaps 250 were printed for the original portfolio, before
someone, likely the publisher, changed his mind about including them. Since Warhol’s death the
foundation has been selling these Sitting Bull prints, stamped “authentic” on the back of the
image. Occasionally they show up at auction.10
9 Feldman and Schellmann, 3d ed., 273. 10 Timothy Hunt, Andy Warhol Foundation, New York, to the author via telephone, 5 May 2005.
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Square Format
Warhol’s choice of a square format for his Cowboy and Indian suite follows a tendency
evident in several of his other major print projects. The artist’s preference for square shaped
prints is curious, in light of the fact that most of the source images he selected are rectangular,
particularly the portraits. In his book The Philosophy of Andy Warhol, the artist provides a
rambling explanation for his love of this shape. “I like to paint on a square,” Warhol mused,
“because you don’t have to decide whether it should be longer-longer or shorter-shorter or
longer-shorter; it’s just square…. When I have to think about it, I know the picture is wrong.
And sizing is a form of thinking, and coloring too. My instinct about painting says, ‘If you don’t
think about it, it’s right.’ As soon as you have to decide and choose, it’s wrong. And the more
you decide about, the more wrong it gets.”11 Warhol’s interest in presenting square images may
also have been motivated by his love for television, which presented its content in such a format
until the 1980s. As has been shown, however, Warhol often had to crop existing photographs in
unusual ways to achieve the desired shape, much like movies are adapted for presentation on
television.
Business Art
Andy Warhol was used to working within the contractual arrangements required by
commissioned work. He called it “business art.”12 Cowboys and Indians would prove
significantly more complicated and contentious than any other Warhol project.13 Edmond
Gaultney came up with the idea for Cowboys and Indians and approached investment banker
11 Warhol, Philosophy, 134-5.12 Andy Warhol, From A to B and Back Again: The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (London: Pan Books Ltd.,
1976) 88.13 Jay Shriver, interview by author, 19 April 2005, via telephone.
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Kent Klineman in the early 1980s. Gaultney originally proposed a portfolio of American Indian
images. Klineman believed a portfolio called Cowboys and Indians would be more marketable.14
This would be the first of many publishing decisions Klineman would make in shaping the
finished product. Warhol gave Kent Klineman final approval for all images in the suite.15 This
provision was not a standard part of Warhol’s art contracts, and would soon prove to be a source
of great frustration to Warhol and his staff. Klineman used his right to final approval excessively
throughout the creation of the portfolio, causing publishing delays and considerable headaches
for many of those involved.16 The contracting parties signed an agreement for the production of
the Cowboys and Indians portfolio in early 1985. As publishers, Gaultney and Klineman were
responsible for researching potential print subjects and developing a pool of images for Warhol’s
consideration, and for obtaining the necessary rights for reproduction.
Sources for Images
Andy Warhol, in collaboration with his publishers, selected some of the most powerful
iconic images of the American West for inclusion in his Western portfolio. Despite the title,
Cowboys and Indians there are no working cowboys in the portfolio; rather “cowboy” serves as a
simile of “western” for Americans, and as a foil to contrast in meaningful way with “Indian.”
The duality set in these images gets to the push-pull, good-bad, ying-yang within American
culture. Warhol’s notion of “Cowboys and Indians” strived to reveal the essence of what it
means to be American.
14 Kent Klineman, interview by author, 11 February 2005, via telephone.15 Klineman interview by author. 16 Fremont and Shriver interviews by author.
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John Wayne
A review or art auction sales showed that John Wayne is the most popular print among
the ten images selected for the final edition. The source for this image is a black and white
portrait photograph of the actor originally used to publicize the 1962 film, The Man Who Shot
Liberty Valance. Directed by the legendary John Ford, the film starred Jimmy Stewart as a
young attorney who finds himself overmatched in a gunfight with an outlaw. John Wayne plays
an open range cowboy who intervenes and shoots the villain from the shadows, without the
knowledge of Stewart or the townspeople who make Stewart a hero. Although built upon a lie,
Stewart’s newfound reputation as the “man who shot Liberty Valance,” propels him into a
political career as a territorial governor and eventually a U.S. Senator. At the end of the film,
when Stewart confesses the story to a group of reporters, a pundit delivers one of the greatest
lines ever written into a western script. “This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact,
print the legend."17
The John Wayne image gives viewers the sense of familiarity and confidence that
Americans have come to associate with the West. Wayne’s pistol is drawn and ready, but not yet
pointed at anyone. His broad-brimmed hat and the shade it provides, hides the actor’s eyes from
view. The colors selected for the regular edition print are relatively realistic, brown hat, dark
peach skin, red and blue shirt, and yellow bandanna. The trial proofs illustrated in the print
catalog raisonné show that the artist considered much lighter skin tones, as well as a black shirt
and hat. But even Warhol must have struggled with presenting “The Duke” to the world in a
black hat.18 17 The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, dir. John Ford, 123 min, Paramount Pictures, 1962, film. 18 The Andy Warhol print catalogue raisonné illustrates three of the 36 trial proofs produced for each image
in Cowboys and Indians, these are the only images available for analysis and are the basis for the comparisons
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Andy WarholCowboys and Indians
Annie Oakley
The image of Annie Oakley, the famous female sharpshooter with Buffalo Bill’s Wild
West show, is based on an anonymous photograph from the 1927 book Annie Oakley by
Courtney Riley Cooper.19 Born Phoebe Moses in Ohio in 1860, Oakley defeated the top male
shooters of her day.20 Oakley is shown in full profile, her hat well back on her head. The
marksmanship medals on her jacket – representing shooting contests she had won around the
world – provided an abstract design around which Warhol experimented during the trial proofing
process. In the final edition print her skin is starkly pale, with only a hint of red lipstick
decorating her face. Her clothing and medals appear in various shades of pink and purple.
Warhol experimented with reversing the image in the trial proofs, which show a fairly narrow
range of skin color and overall palette.
In the edition print Oakley faces to the viewer’s left. The artist’s decision to include a
strong female image in this portfolio suggests a departure from the traditional male-dominated
the histories of the American West and foreshadowed the publication of Patricia Nelson
Limerick’s book Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West (1987), which
ushered in a new academic movement known as “New Western History.” Oakley’s inclusion,
however, may also have been the result of the shooter’s reputation being kept alive by such
popular culture treatments of her legacy as the Broadway musical Annie Get Your Gun, or the
1950s television series loosely based on her life.
described herein.19 Feldman and Schellmann, 3d ed., 273. 20 Glenda Riley, The Life and Legacy of Annie Oakley (Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press,
1994) 3.
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Andy WarholCowboys and Indians
Oakley’s image provides an interesting comparison with Warhol’s most famous
depictions of Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, and Jacqueline Kennedy. All of these women
achieved worldwide fame, the power resident in the images of Monroe, Taylor and Kennedy is
due to the tragic events that befell them. Monroe died young, at the height of her celebrity; while
Taylor had a number of serious illnesses, not to mention multiple husbands; and Kennedy
endured the shocking assignation of her husband, President John F. Kennedy, with grace and
poise.
Oakley, on the other hand, personifies the Cinderella story, rising from poverty to fame
and fortune. When she beat champion marksman Frank Butler in a shooting contest she also
won his heart, and the two married several years later.21 Rather than presenting “pride before the
fall” or “grace under pressure” as seen in the images of Monroe, Taylor and Kennedy, the Annie
Oakley print captures the image of a young woman balancing the confidence of succeeding in a
man’s domain with delicate femininity.
General George Armstrong Custer
Mathew Brady’s famous 1865 photograph of General George Armstrong Custer as a
Civil War general provides the basis for Warhol’s General Custer.22 Perhaps the most famous
western figure of all, Custer had received significant acclaim as a Union cavalryman during the
Civil War. His death at in the Battle of the Little Big Horn (1876) brought him immortality. The
source photograph captures Custer’s aloof and confident persona. Warhol did nothing to dull
these qualities in his printmaking. Although the officer’s uniform in at least two of the trial
21 ibid., 18. 22 Feldman and Schellmann, 3d ed., 273.
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proofs is close to its authentic blue color, in the edition print the General is clad in a white coat
with gold buttons and insignia. His hat and bandana are bright red.
Despite Warhol’s claims that his images contained no social commentary, one cannot
view this image without considering Custer’s historical reputation, which varies from fool to
martyred hero depending on the commentator. Warhol clearly sides with the hero worshippers
by enrobing Custer in saintly white. The depth of Warhol’s devotion to the Custer mystique may
be reflected in the artist’s diary entry for October 3, 1984. “I don’t love my name so much. I
always wanted to change it,” Warhol noted. “When I was little I was going to take
‘Morningstar.’ Andy Morningstar. I thought it was so beautiful. And I came so close to actually
using it for my career. This was before the book, Marjorie Morningstar. I just liked the name, it
was my favorite.”23
Ironically, Warhol may have encountered the name in connection with George Armstrong
Custer, whom several Indian tribes referred to as “Son of the Morning Star.” Publisher Kent
Klineman, co-publisher of Warhol’s Cowboys and Indians suite, recalled the artist being a “huge
Custer fan” and lobbied to include the General in the series; even though, Klineman felt Custer
was “an idiot and an overused cliché.”24 Infatuated with celebrity, Warhol likely dreamed of
meeting or even being George Armstrong Custer.
Northwest Coast Mask
Northwest Coast Mask is based on photographs taken by Warhol during his 1985 visit to
the Gustave Heye Collection in the Museum of the American Indians in New York City. The
23 Hackett, 605.24 Klineman interview by author.
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museum purchased this Northwest Coast mask, attributed to the Kwakiutl tribe of Vancouver
Island, British Columbia, in 1926.25 Indian Art in America called the mask: “Another fine
example of a changing-face mask; in the illustration it is closed to show the outer face. By
pulling the strings, an inner mask is revealed. The mask represents a man’s head surrounded by
two mythical fish.”26
The edition print for Northwest Coast Mask retains the general values of the artifact,
rendered in reds and blues. The original mask, however, has a more widely varied color scheme,
containing yellow, red, white, green and black. The mask depicted in the print is also
substantially shorter than the real object. To retain a square picture plane Warhol had to crop the
fish tails that extend well beyond the chin of the mask. Trial proofs for this image exhibit color
palettes ranging from pink with green to brown and orange. One of the proofs also contains an
orange background rather than the stark white generally used on all the prints in the series.
Kachina Dolls
Kachina Dolls is actually a double image of a single doll based on photographs taken by
Warhol during his 1985 visit to the Museum of the American Indians. This treatment is
reminiscent of the artist’s early works that featured multiple images of the same object. In this
case a double image may have been needed to fill the square surface. According to the museum
catalog, the kachina represents, “Tumas, the Mother of Tunup who flogs children in the Powamu
festival.” The museum collected the kachina, of Hopi origin, in Oraibi, Arizona, in 1929, from
25 Patricia Nietfeld, Suitland, Maryland, to the author, via e-mail 4 April 2005, hard copy in the collection of the Booth Western Art Museum. National Museum of the American Indian catalog card number 149626.000,
26 Frederick J. Dockstader, Indian Art in America: The Arts and Crafts of the North American Indian (New York: Promontory Press, 1973) np., plate 91. Dockstader was the Director of the Museum of the American Indian at the time this book was published.
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Fred Harvey, the leading tour operator in the Southwest during the early 20th century.27 The
edition print shows one of the duplicate kachina in white and the other in pink, both with gray
shadows. Two of the three trial proofs illustrated in the print catalog raisonné exhibit a similar
color pattern, while the third contains one green image and one pink, with much heavier and
darker shadows.
Plains Indian Shield
Plains Indian Shield is based on a Crow artifact made of buffalo hide photographed by
Warhol during his 1985 visit to the Museum of the American Indians. The Museum obtained the
object in 1909 as part of the J.B. Linde Collection.28 One of the most important Crow artifacts in
existence, this war-medicine shield belonged to Chief Arapoosh at the time of the Lewis and
Clark expedition. “It was used as a talisman,” writes Frederick Dockstader in Indian Art in
America. “When rolled along the ground, success was assured if it stopped face up. But if it fell
face down, the project would be abandoned as foredoomed to failure. The design represents the
Moon, which came to the owner in human form during a vision and gave him this shield.”29
The edition print depicts a mostly yellow shield, with a white stripe down the center,
wider at the top than the bottom. Light blue and black crescents near the top of the shield may
symbolize the Moon. Two bison are shown in black and a red feather with a black tip extends
beyond the visual boundary of the shield. One of the trial proofs is very similar to the edition
print, but with a pink rather than red feather. Other proofs appear as negative images, with the
darks and lights reversed when compared to the edition print.
27 Nietfeld e-mail to author, National Museum of the American Indian catalog card number, 090939.000 28 ibid., National Museum of the American Indian catalog card number, 024426.000 29 Dockstader, np., plate 197.
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Mother and Child
Mother and Child appropriates a black and white postcard image entitled “Bright Eyes
Squaw and Papoose” by an anonymous photographer.30 The absence of color in the source image
left Warhol free to experiment with color, without any pre-conceived idea of what the finished
product should look like. The rather conservative edition print contains a realistic color scheme
of dark pink skin, green dress, and bright, multi-colored blanket. All trial proofs illustrated in the
print catalog raisonné are relatively similar to the edition print, with only slight variations in skin
color and the saturation of the color on the blanket noticeable.
Several of the serigraphs in Cowboys and Indians, particularly those created from small
source images such as Mother and Child, show the printing dots created by enlarging the original
postcard to the size of the finished prints. While the existence of these dots is often seen in Pop
Art, particularly the work of Roy Lichtenstein, it is not as readily observed in much of Warhol’s
output. A close examination of Mother and Child reveals a strong pattern of dots inherited from
the original image, which actually help strengthen Warhol’s interpretation, giving the final print
a beaded appearance.
Geronimo
Geronimo is based on a famous photograph taken in 1887 by Ben Wittick, one of the
earliest professional photographers in the Southwest.31 The original photograph shows Geronimo
kneeling with a rifle held diagonally across his chest. In Warhol’s tightly cropped version of the
image, however, the old warrior’s face fills the page. The old warrior stares straight at the
30 Feldman and Schellmann, 3d ed., 273. The terms squaw and papoose are no longer considered appropriate for use in referring to Indian women and children.
31 Colophon accompanying the Cowboys and Indians portfolio, 1986, produced by Gaultney-Klineman Art, Inc., New York City.
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viewer, with an expression that some read as fierce determination and others, deep sadness.
Regardless, the emotion is both visible and intense. The photographer snapped the pose shortly
after the Apache headman was captured for the final time. Denied his independence, Geronimo’s
elder years were spent selling autographs, pictures of himself, and the buttons off his vest to
souvenir seekers.
The edition print shows Geronimo with a ruddy ochre-colored face, red shirt and dark
black hair, all of which draw attention to the whites of his eyes. The trial proofs for this image
exhibit a wide range of colors. One suggests a photographic negative, while another shows
Geronimo in a green shirt with bright pink skin. The most arresting image of all, however, shows
the warrior with a deep blue face, as if he were an alien from another planet. Warhol may also
have employed the hue to represent the sadness surrounding the plight of the Indian leader. In all
three of the proofs the whites of the eyes are the focal point and dare the viewer to return the
subject’s unblinking gaze.
Teddy Roosevelt
Teddy Roosevelt is based on George Gardiner Rockwood’s 1898 photograph of Theodore
Roosevelt in his Rough Rider uniform.32 Cropped from a full-length portrait, Warhol’s image is
again a tight headshot, with the top of Roosevelt’s hat touching the edge of the paper.
Roosevelt’s inclusion in this portfolio is a bit curious. While he did own a ranch in Dakota
Territory and actually lived the life of the cowboy for nearly two years; this experience was not
the source of his fame. Instead of drawing on Roosevelt’s cowboy period, Warhol depicts him in
the military uniform in which he earned ever-lasting fame for a charge up San Juan Hill, not in
32 Feldman and Schellmann, 3d ed., 273.
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the West, but in Cuba during the Spanish American War. Many of the Rough Riders he led,
however, were cowboys, specifically recruited by Roosevelt for their hardiness and
horsemanship. Moreover, Roosevelt’s romantic writings about the winning of the West had
helped create the cowboy myth.
The edition print shows the war hero dressed in a light blue jacket and hat, with a black
face that hides much of its detail. Publisher Kent Klineman later claimed credit for Roosevelt
being shown in black face in the edition print. Klineman said it was meant to counteract what he
believed was the condescending image presented by a statue at the American Museum of Natural
History that portrays the former president with his hand on the shoulder of a black man.33 The
trial proofs show his original khaki uniform reproduced in various shades of blue and gray, while
the skin tone varies from gray to light orange.
Indian Head Nickel
Indian Head Nickel is based on the 1913 U.S. nickel designed by sculptor James Earle
Fraser, best known for his classic sculpture of Indian defeat, End of the Trail.34 The edition print
shows another example of Warhol’s social commentary as the word “Liberty” appears boldly
lettered in the line of sight of the Indian chief. Whereas the coloring of the edition print
resembles the dull chrome finish of the actual coin, trial proofs exhibit more adventurous colors
such as orange, pink, and black rendered on a variety of colored backgrounds.
33 Klineman interview by author.34 Cowboys and Indians colophon.
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Rejected Trial Proofs
Andy Warhol had the tremendous gift of understanding the defining myths of the baby
boomer generation. His gift was the ability to identify images that united groups of disparate
individuals in a common mind and presenting these images before his audience as the essence of
their being.35 With Cowboys and Indians this gift is confirmed by looking at the range of western
subjects Warhol chose for the suite. Custer, John Wayne and Geronimo certainly epitomize the
general public’s iconic view of the American West, while the inclusion of images of two women
and a soldier-president who had relatively brief experiences in the West are in tune with a less
traditional, more contemporary view of western history. The artist did not, however, select one of
the most exciting images of the lot, Action Picture, based on a 1903 painting of a cavalry charge
by Charles Schreyvogel. Asked why this image was not included in the final edition, Kent
Klineman said it didn’t fit. Warhol, he continued, was generally a portrait painter, whether his
subject was a person, an object or a building.
A closer examination of each of the chosen images proves this point. Presented against
stark white backgrounds, all of the regular edition prints are portraits and all appear flat, lacking
modeling and depth. Only Kachina Dolls shows significant depth, indicated by the dark
shadows. The shadows cast by the hats of Teddy Roosevelt and John Wayne, and the rough
outline of the nickel coin, only hint at a third dimension. Observing the depth inherent in Action
Picture or War Bonnet Indian, one can see why these images would have looked out of place
when it came time to assemble the final portfolio. It is also easy to see why only one side of the
nickel needed to be included. The choice might have been as easy as a coin toss.
35 Danto, in Feldman and Schellmann, 3d ed., 9.
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Deciding whether or not to include Sitting Bull in the suite proved difficult. At the time of
Warhol’s October, 1985, trip to the Museum of the American Indian and the publication of
advertising brochures, Sitting Bull was part of the portfolio.36 By June 1986, however, there were
indications an image of Geronimo would be added to the mix.37 In the end only one chief was
included and the powerful, emotion filled countenance of Geronimo won out over the taciturn
portrait of Sitting Bull.
Warhol told Alvin Josephy that the image of William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody would be
included in the finished portfolio.38 The presence of the legendary scout, pony express rider and
showman, certainly would have made sense. Perhaps more than any other individual, Cody was
responsible for developing and presenting the myth of the Old West to the world through the
imagery and spectacle of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show, which greatly influenced western
movie makers. Why Cody is not a part of Warhol’s roundup of western icons is a mystery.
Perhaps he was deemed passé or maybe none of the scores of photographs and other images of
the “Great Scout” suited the artist. Whatever the case, his absence from the portfolio is notable.
Photographs from the opening reception at the Museum of the American Indians show
that a Mimbres bowl was also considered for the Cowboys and Indians suite. Why this artifact
was not included in the final edition cannot be determined with certainty. Warhol intended to
use only two or three artifact-based images in the suite.39 Perhaps, he felt that the bowl’s shape
and three-dimensional nature were too difficult to capture, or that the visual impact of the object
was less powerful than the other objects. The publisher may have considered the bowl’s 14th
36 Josephy, 43. 37 Klineman letter to Cochran, 1 July 1986. 38 Josephy, 43.39 ibid., 44.
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century origins too far removed from the rest of the images, which date from the late 19th and
early 20th centuries.
30
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Trial Proofs:
31
Action Picture Buffalo Nickel
Sitting Bull III War Bonnet Indian
Andy WarholCowboys and Indians
Endangered Species:
32
Bighorn RamBald Eagle
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