Description:
Watercolor on paper. Stamped u.r.: PLANCHE 20.
From: American Indian Painters, Vol. 1, pp. 15-16: Paul Goodbear is a pure blood Northern Cheyenne with a distinguished pedigree, born on the Cheyenne Reservation in Montana, in 1913. He is a prince of the blood, a grandson of Chief Turkey Legs, great grandson of Chief Starr, and great grandson of Chief Whirlwind. All historians agree that the Cheyennes were among the most magnificent of the Plains tribes, and Paul carries the weight of a lot of inherited dignity on his shoulders. His record to date is not without distinction. Although born in Montana, he spent his childhood in Oklahoma, where he went to public school. Later he attended Wichita University and the University of New Mexico. He even studied at the Chicago Art Institute for a while. It is doubtful whether the last school was very sympathetic to his Indian art heritage. For an Indian aristocrat, Goodbear has had a varied career. He has danced, sung, painted, taught school, clerked in a department store in Washington, D.C., and has even been a professional boxer, at some time or another, as he gently puts it. He also has seen was service in Okinawa and elsewhere. He is interested in the Indian. As Edwin Abbey became fascinated by the romance of England in the days of King Arthur and Queen Elizabeth, so Goodbear prefers to chose scenes and incidents from Cheyenne and other Indian life long since past. Many of his paintings show the conflict between Whites and Indians, attacks on immigrants' trains, incidents from the frontier wars, the migrations of tribes along buffalo trails, settling down for the winter in more or less permanent camps, sports and pastimes. He portrays the time when his ancestors were the lords of the vast expanse of territory east of the Rockies, and when they dressed in handsome rainment of buckskin and feathers. Already he has received much recognition for his work and has exhibited widely. His paintings have been acquired by a publishing firm to illustrate school books. He executed several murals, the best of which are at the Coronado Monument at Bernalillo, New Mexico; Hilton Hotel, Albuquerque; the Ranch Bar, Chicago; Osceola Bar in Miami, Florida; and some theatres. The painting here reproduced is an excellent example of his watercolors and his large scale composition. The sun dance, found only among the Plains Indians, was probably their most important and most sacred ceremonial. They believed that its first performance, under the direction of the gods, had caused the buffalo to appear on the earth, insuring them a means of subsistence. Its aim seems to have been to overcome some dangerous or evil elements. It may have been originally a summer solstice ritual, although its performance did not necessarily coincide with the solstice; among some tribes, it could even take place in the fall instead of the summer. (Collection, University of Oklahoma)