Winold Reiss

On Friday, June 10, 2005, a small art show in the Hockaday Art Museum of Kalispell, Montana, exhibited many paintings by Winold Reiss. (Pronounced VEE-nold Rice.) Several worlds were overlapping here.

Reiss was the painter whose portraits of Blackfeet became as associated with the Great Northern Railway as their trademark mountain goat silhouette on the boxcars. He and his older brother both emigrated from Germany between World Wars because they were pacifists. The older brother went to Lapland and Sweden, but Winold chose America because he so loved American Indians and assumed he would step off the boat onto streets stalked by (ironically) warriors. But he learned that he would have to continue on to Montana. In a few years he boarded a train to do just that.

So, the overlaps: a finely educated New York City artist and his family; the Great Northern Railway and its sponsored destination, Glacier National Park; and the Blackfeet tribe, located on both sides of the Canadian border. The Hockaday Art Museum is in the old Carnegie library, now gracefully converted. The event of the show, which will continue all summer, was introduced by an inspired Power Point presentation by Scott Tanner, Vice-President of the Great Northern Historical Society. (After giving us the facts, Scott let us look at one of the hundreds of brilliant, warm portraits after another, while playing a soundtrack of Jack Gladstone, popular Blackfeet musician.)

In attendance were the family of Reiss: Winold is gone and so is his son, Tjark (who was the same age as Bob Scriver, born in 1914.) But Tjark’s second wife, Renate, her son by her previous marriage, and Tjark’s son by his earlier marriage were present. They continue to live in the family home in rural New York, Tjark’s son in the house and Renate in the barn, which has undergone one of those marvelous remodels. (Henry Field, Renate’s son, is a contractor in Santa Fe.) Anyway, she needs the space as she manages Tjark’s estate, which includes Winold’s estate. A small, lively, pretty, white-haired woman, Renate looks as though she could hike across Glacier Park in a day.

Renate has organized a website (http://winold-reiss.org) which for the first time summarizes the basics of Winold’s extraordinary life. An appreciation by Ned Jacob sketches the artistic accomplishments, which include mosaics in railway stations, Art Deco murals in Manhattan restaurants, graphic design, portraits of Harlem blacks with the same intensity as the Blackfeet portraits, and many other contexts. He was a man who threw out his arms to the world and then showed us what he saw.

No huge crowd of sequined art buyers were present -- very few of Reiss’ paintings are on the market and those that are have healthy price tags, though one can buy a little portfolio of the Great Northern portraits for a few dollars. This art is entirely outside the familiar stampede of Charlie Russell clones. Few would have the skill to imitate this style, though Russell knew these people and also portrayed them.

The archetypal Reiss story is about him arriving on the train in Browning in the midst of a blizzard. The hotel was full up, and he had to beg and insist to be allowed space in a bed already occupied by a cowboy. He never met the man, who left before Reiss awoke, but no doubt both were grateful for human warmth.

Reiss bounded out to the street where he met a giant Indian, a genuine old-time, buffalo-culture man with long hair and hooded eyes. Feeling that he knew all about such folks and just what proper etiquette might be, he slapped the man on the back and said, “How!” The Indian was astounded. Too surprised to take offense. They were friends from then on and Reiss portrayed him many times.

The Great Northern was intent on building a customer base around the major national parks and, though the fabulous alpine scenery of Glacier was really the goal, they discovered that the Blackfeet from whom the mountains had been bought were better advertising material on their calendars. At the time the elders were accustomed to dressing up in parade duds and meeting the trains bringing tourists. They put up their lodges on the lawn in front of the huge log structure and sang and danced. In return they received a bit of pay, the right to sell their crafts, and whatever food was left in the kitchen after everyone else had eaten.

The great-great-grandchildren of these dignified persons are not pleased by what looks to them like disrespect, but the Indians there at the time were happy to be eating. In those years some folks died of starvation, both reservation old-timers and High-Line dry-land farmers, also brought by the railroad to homestead.

Reiss started a summer art school in the St. Marys chalet, a complex of log buildings created by Great Northern, and that in itself became a tourist attraction. Reiss was always careful to include some young Blackfeet artists. (He invited Bob Scriver, whose mother wouldn’t let him attend because she considered them a Bohemian and reckless bunch -- no doubt they were!) Among the young men who became noted artists were Gerald Tailfeathers, Victor Pepion, and Albert Racine. (There were also many white women, for instance, Elizabeth Lochrie.)

I was pleased that Shirlee Crowshoe and her husband Darrell attended the lecture and show. Shirlee is one of the teachers at the Piegan Institute Blackfeet Language School (she is a Blackfeet speaker) and a museum consultant. She’s always had an interest in Reiss and has accumulated many prints to hang in the school. We talked about what an effective counter-force Reiss’ work is in a world that can tell Indians they are dirty losers. These paintings thrill with nobility and humor.

For several years the Great Northern sent Christmas cards featuring Winold Reiss portraits of Blackfeet babies in cradle boards who are supposed to be saying, “Come to Glacier Park -- I did!” If the Bush administration eliminates Amtrak, you won’t be able to make the trip by train. All things pass, except maybe the inspiration of really fine art.