Description:
Watercolor on paper. Signed l.r.: Beaver 47.
From: American Indian Painters, Vol. 1, p. 12: A young Indian whose work has been seen and admired in recent exhibitions is Fred Beaver, a Creek fullblood from eastern Oklahoma where he was born in 1911. He went to Haskell Institute, graduating in 1935 in business. He does not seem to have received any art instruction either in Haskell or in high school. He saw action for two and a half years in Africa, Sicily, Italy and Corsica with the 12th Air Force. At the present time, he is an employee in the Indian Service at Ardmore, Oklahoma. The painting that he has done so far was produced during spare moments. The Seminoles of the Florida Everglades have designed an amazing costume built up of patches of cloth of many colors. It is a colorful and comfortable outfit. Their grass huts are like wise adapted to the climate and living conditions in the swamp lands, to which a remnant of the tribes, under Osceola, retreated, unconquered, at the time of the Seminole War of 1835, and where they still live. It is these people that Beaver prefers as subjects. In "The Seminole Family" he introduced a stylized form of jungle background of intense green that tends to dominate the interest. In spite of this, the painting has a dramatic quality. (Courtesy of the Artist).