DAVE MCGARY (American, b. 1958). Not Afraid of Pawnee, 1996. Bronze with patina and paint. 24 x 21 x 10-1/2 inches (61.0...

Description

DAVE MCGARY (American, b. 1958)
Not Afraid of Pawnee, 1996
Bronze with patina and paint
24 x 21 x 10-1/2 inches (61.0 x 53.3 x 26.7 cm)
Ed. 50/75
Signed, dated, and numbered on base: Dave McGary 1996 50/75

One of the many practices that McGary learned while studying bronze casting under the American sculptor Harry Jackson was that of applying paints, as well as patinas, to finished surfaces. In Not Afraid of Pawnee, a bust of the late nineteenth-century Yankton Sioux warrior, McGary's coloration operates aesthetically and symbolically: the black of the Sioux's face paint suggests his deadened feelings of revenge, and the red of his shirt the power he derives from Mother Earth. Not Afraid of Pawnee wears as a sign of his battle prowess his characteristic timber-wolf headdress, fringed with golden eagle feathers, which sacred, must never touch the ground. On his left shoulder, he supports a Spencer rifle encased in a beaded Sioux case.


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