Modernist
WINOLD REISS (1886–1953)
Blackfeet Girl with Doll
Mixed media on paper, 29 x 20 in.
Signed (at lower left): WINOLD / REISS
EX COLL.: the artist; to private collection, New York, and by descent until the present
In the time that Winold Reiss spent living with and painting his Blackfeet family, the artist explored every demographic of his chosen people: infants to elders, male and female, tribal leaders as well as ordinary folk. As with his Harlem Renaissance portraits, some of Reiss Blackfeet subjects were identifiable figures, others not. Nothing is known about the subject of Girl with Doll except the obvious, that it is a portrait of a female Native American child holding on her lap a large traditionally dressed doll. Reiss posed the child in an all-white garment, recalling his similar technique for the Harlem Renaissance portraits. The doll wears brightly colored fringed Blackfeet dress, with geometric motifs in red, blue, and yellow and a headdress topped with light green feathers. The child’s face stands out against her white dress, the only touch of color added in bright yellow moccasins on her feet. Reiss was fond of painting children and made repeated use of the theme of girls holding traditionally dressed dolls. Reiss also painted a small (11 1/4 x 9 1/4 in.) head and shoulders portrait of apparently the same child (with pink bows on her braids) titled “Little Rosebush,” one of a group of five same size Reiss portraits of native Americans that sold in Idaho at Coeur d’Alene Art Auctions in 2018.
