FRITZ SCHOLDER was a Native American Abstract Expressionist artist. Born in Minnesota, Scholder’s family moved to California in 1957 where Fritz studied with Wayne Thiebaud. Scholder eventually formed a cooperative gallery with Thiebaud and others in Sacramento. After graduating from Sacramento State University, Scholder was invited to the University of Arizona to participate in the Rockefeller Indian Art Project. In 1964 Scholder became an instructor in Advanced Painted and Contemporary Art History at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, NM.
Through is late ’60s Native American series of prints and paintings, Scholder influenced a generation of Native American artists. By the 1980s museums were hosting retrospectives and a monograph was published by Rizzoli International. In 1983 he received the New Mexico Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts. He also received numerous honorary degrees and a humanitarian award from Norsk Hostfest.
In 1994, Scholder was invited by Leonard Baskin to collaborate on a book at Gehenna Press. He then returned to Arizona and formed his own press, Apocrypha. He remained productive with books, digital books, painting and sculpture. In 2009, Scholder was posthumously inducted into the California Hall of Fame.
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The following pieces are among the Scholders in the Bishop inventory. All pieces are for sale. Please contact us and reference the ID number for any works that interest you. Bill and Fritz were good friends. Several of these works are birthday cards that were specially created for Bill Bishop by Fritz Scholder.
