Cigar Store Indian c. 1938

Walter Hochstrasser’s "Cigar Store Indian" seems like it came to life through layers of watercolor on paper. I imagine it was a process of building up washes of color, letting them bleed into each other, and then defining those contours. I can almost feel what Hochstrasser felt, trying to capture the figure’s stoicism but also its texture—the way the light plays on the tassels of the buckskin and that feathered headdress. It’s like he's saying, “How do I make this thing feel real, even though it's just a representation?” The colors, mostly earthy browns and muted blues, lend a kind of weight to the figure, grounding it in reality but also giving it a ghostly quality. It's got the spirit of those old wooden sculptures but reimagined through Hochstrasser's hand. Painters are always looking at each other, riffing off ideas, and wrestling with ways to make something new out of something old. It reminds you that art is about a conversation that never really ends.