Hopi Man
MAYNARD DIXON (1875–1946)
[The Hopi] still believe and act as our forefathers did 2,000 years ago. They are here in the midst of steel and electricity a little remnant of the stone age still living.
At the turn of the 20th century there was a widespread fervor in the United States for collecting Native American art, which by then could be purchased in department stores and many other venues across the country. Wealthy collectors created “Indian corners” in their homes to flaunt their purchases.
In 1923, while living with the Hopi, Dixon painted this work. Filling the composition, the figure is wrapped in a blanket, perhaps symbolic of a determination to maintain indigenous cultural traditions. The painting embodies a feel of nostalgia, held by Dixon and others who came out of the Aesthetic era, that the American Indian was a dying race doomed to extinction in fast-moving modern America.
Curricular Resources
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Native American Concerns