Winold Reiss (1886–1953)

WINOLD REISS (1886–1953)
Indian Man from Mexico, 1920
Pastel on paper, 25 x 19 in. 
Signed (at lower left): WINOLD / REISS

RECORDED: Frank Mehring, ed., The Mexico Diary: Winold Reiss between Vogue Mexico and Harlem Renaissance (Tempe, Arizona: Bilingual Press, 2016), plate 29 illus. in color as “Indian Man”, pp. 78, 113, 150, 199 // Jeffrey C. Stewart, Winold Reiss: An Illustrated Checklist of His Portraits (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press for the National Portrait Gallery, 1990), p. 54 illus. as “Indian Man”

EXHIBITED: The Anderson Galleries, New York, November 13–25, 1922, Winold Reiss, no. 28 as “Indian from Tepozotlan” // Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield, Massachusetts, February 5–May 25, 1977, Diverse Reflections: Portraits by Winold Reiss 

EX COLL.: [J. N. Bartfield Galleries, New York, by 1990]

Reiss’s Mexican work of 1920 is optimistic. He was happy and free as he tramped around Mexico carrying the tools of his art with him. Indian Man from Mexico is a portrait of a young man wearing a sombrero and wrapped in a blanket, his eyes intent on something past the viewer. He has survived, strong and whole, through a stormy past into the present moment when he and Reiss, an unlikely pair, have come together. There is spontaneity here as Reiss documents a sliver of shared time and a vision of shared hope for a better future.