Description:
Watercolor on paper. Signed l.r.: Calvin Larvie, Stamped u.r.: PLANCHE 25.
From: American Indian Painters, Vol. 1, p. 17: In the first half of the nineteenth century, the Sioux Indians had a great reputation as painters on buckskin, especially painters of horses and warriors in full battle array. At the present time there are only four or five Sioux artists. Calvin Larvie is one of the two best known. Calvin was born on the Rosebud Reservation in south Dakota he went to the Indian School there. Drawing and painting occupied the greater part of his time. He early acquired a certain local reputation. The golden opportunity knocked long and loud in 1938. He was assigned by the government to paint a large mural in the Plains Indians Room in the Federal Building at the San Francisco World's Fair. There he secured an audience from all America. The war came and Calvin became a warrior. He was in the invasion of France with the 90th Infantry Division and was wounded in the Rhineland campaign. Now he has returned to his people on the Rosebud Reservation, and is gradually readjusting himself to civilian life. He wishes to continue with his art but apparently finds little encouragement in South Dakota, so he recently wrote us. In his paintings, Calvin seems to prefer spiritual, or shall we say allegorical themes, with a decidedly religious or metaphysical flavor. It is possible that there remains in his heritage something of the same revivalist spirit that produced the leaders of the Ghost Dance uprising in 1890? It is possible that he mulls over the meaning of the destiny of his people? Looking at the painting here reproduced one is tempted to so believe. "The Vision" is a private religious experience of an adolescent in preparation for "bravehood". (Collection, University of Oklahoma) Text references: American Indian Painters, Vol. 1, pp. 11, 17.