Description:
Watercolor on Paper. Signed l.r.: Earle Poodry, Stamped u.r.: PLANCHE 11.
From: American Indian Painters, Vol. 1, pp. 13-14: The remnants of Indian tribes living in the eastern states have not participated in the exciting upsurge of artistic activity. It is confined to the peoples living west of the Mississippi and in the wonderland of the Southwest. There the Indian culture has not been obliterated. However, among some of the young men belonging to the Eastern tribes, like the Cherokees and Shawnees, now living in Oklahoma, the blood is stirring. Earle Podry is the grandson of the last chief or Sachem of the Senecas. He is mixed Seneca and Sauk-Fox with a dash of French blood, contributed, perhaps by an adventurous coureur de bois. He was born in Akron, New York, in 1915. However, he spent his childhood in eastern Oklahoma. He attended Bacone College where he came under the influence of Indian artists trained in the University of Oklahoma. It was here there that his picture was painted. It is a well-organized composition of three western warriors on horseback, apparently a scouting party. The colors are well controlled to harmonize with the sandy paper, producing a harmony of tans, buffs, browns, burnt umbers, yellow ochres, black and white, spiced with a touch of green. The drawing of the horses and men is expertly done. Most Indians have the ability of securing the illusion of foreshortening in two-dimensional form. The subject, however, belongs to the western Plains tribes and not to his own people. The Senecas and other Iroquois were great carvers of grotesque and frightening masks. Belonging to this tribe, Poudry takes naturally to wood carving and cartooning. Little of his work has appeared during the last few years. (Collection, University of Oklahoma)