Callers
Walter Ufer
ca. 1926
Medium
Painting
Classification
Painting
Department
Smithsonian Collection
Museum
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Credit
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. R. Crosby Kemper, Jr.
Accession Number
1984.66
Tags
Equestrianfull lengthFigure groupIndian
About this artwork
This painting captures an everyday, yet deeply poetic moment among New Mexico's Pueblo Indians. Ufer was a German émigré who brought to America an intense sympathy for ordinary people instilled in him by his socialist family. He did not romanticize his sitters, because he understood that the Indian "resents being regarded as a curiosity—as a dingleberry on a tree." The two men on horseback pay their respects to a woman who lives, like millions of Americans, behind a picket fence. Their costumes ...