Portrait of Wolf Robe

Portrait of Wolf Robe, Pencil on Poster Board, 11x14, 2000, Scott L. Brown


This is an older drawing of mine, from 2000. For a time I was very attracted to drawing Native American faces because of their usually extreme physiognomy. I once read a quote by a Sioux named Lame Deer who said that, as Indian's age their faces tend to resemble the desert wilderness landscape itself. I think that's certainly true of this Cheyenne chief, Wolf Robe.

There is a problem with choosing a Native American as a subject, though, which is that many automatically label it as "Western Art" and it gets lumped in with Remington and others artists whose goal was to manifest a certain kind of sensibility about a particular era in history. I am not at all interested in "Cowboy and Indian" art. My take on this face is from the same place as all my other portraits: it's just such an interesting face, full of character.

People sometimes ask why I did the hair the way I did, or rather didn't do the hair, the way I did. The point of this devise was simply to emphasize the sculptural quality of the face. His facial structure is so very extreme, I though it demanded this kind of treatment.