Noted: Look more closely at “Untitled,” a 1985 oil-on-canvas work by the late Harry Whitehorse, and you will see how the artist’s use of pointillism, the impressionist technique of painting with distinct color dots, brings the sun-soaked image to life. Viewers might become transfixed by the buck’s stare, which reads as if unwanted visitors have interrupted his respite.
In addition to Whitehorse, purportedly born in a wigwam near the Indian Mission in Black River Falls in 1927 and proprietor of Chief Auto Body in Monona for 40 years, the exhibit’s other superstar is the late Truman Lowe, a former fine arts professor at UW-Madison who also served as curator of the Smithsonian’s Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. The other artists are relatively unknown, with several exhibiting publicly for the first time.