Cigar Store Indian 1937

Ethel Dougan made this watercolor painting of a Cigar Store Indian and honestly, I feel for her. It is not easy to paint a sculpture; there is a pressure to be real, to show the thing as it is. But she doesn’t give in to that pressure. Look at the paint handling. It’s so thin and washy, with a real looseness about it. The layers of pigment create subtle shifts in tone and texture. See how the grey around the headdress almost blends into the white of the page? But I am mostly drawn to the treatment of the statue’s clothes. The artist creates a sense of movement and fluidity. She invites us to consider the interplay between representation and abstraction. It reminds me of Fairfield Porter, who was also interested in the meeting point between abstraction and representation. Ultimately, painting is a conversation. Ethel Dougan is talking to Porter and talking to us. It’s up to us to listen.