[PAINTING ON PANEL OF ROMAN NOSE, THE FAMOUS CHEYENNE WARRIOR, IN THE FULL BATTLE REGALIA OF THE ELK SOLDIERS].
Riggs, Robert:
[Philadelphia. ca. 1948]. Dry pigment, mastic varnish, and alcohol, on panel, 25 x 36 inches. Signed lower right: "Riggs." In fine condition, in a burnished gilt wood frame. This remarkable painting by the well-known artist and illustrator, Robert Riggs, depicts famous Cheyenne warrior Roman Nose in battle, dressed in the full regalia of the Elk Soldier warrior society. A dramatic, powerful image, it is one of a handful of paintings by Riggs. Robert Riggs (1896-1970) was in his heyday one of the best-known artists and illustrators in the United States. After studies at the Art Students League and service during World War I, Riggs settled in Philadelphia, his home base for the rest of his life. In the 1930s and '40s he rose to national prominence as an illustrator, lithographer, and commercial artist, producing well-known images of boxers and circuses (two life-long obsessions), and of soldiers during World War II. In 1940, around the peak of his career as an illustrator, his drawings commanded $750-$1500 each, and his name was as well-known in the trade as that of Norman Rockwell. But Riggs loathed this commercial work, and after 1950 he slid increasingly into obscurity, although revered by those who knew him in the Philadelphia art world. When he died in 1970, he was almost forgotten. Riggs was never comfortable working in oils or watercolor, preferring dry mediums such as pencil and charcoal. For the few large paintings he created, he employed a technique of blending dry pigments with mastic varnish and alcohol, working on panels he had especially manufactured for his use. This technique, which creates a surface similar to the look of egg tempera, adds to the extraordinary character of Riggs' major compositions. Riggs had a particular fascination with American Indians. In his days of affluence during the Depression and World War II, he formed a major collection of American Indian artifacts. According to his biographer, he owned "an odd and unsettling collection of American Indian artifacts...He was a serious and widely read amateur anthropologist, whose hobby, an expensive one into which he happily poured much of his substantial income...was guided in part by Frank N. Speck of the University of Pennsylvania, a friend who was perhaps the foremost authority then on Indians of the Northeast." This collection played an important part in the creation of the present painting, and particular artifacts depicted are probably based on items in his collection. For example, Riggs owned several of the grisly "finger necklaces" of dried human fingers, one of which Roman Nose wears in the painting. Riggs clearly went to great lengths to make the finely realized details of his painting completely accurate. His own collections and his friendship with Speck aided him in this (Riggs did small drawings of artifacts for several of Speck's publications). Thus, such apparently bizarre details as Roman Nose's body paint are based on Riggs' understanding of the Elk Soldier war regalia, and he has faithfully reproduced what is known of Roman Nose's headdress, which supposedly had magical powers to ward off arrows and bullets. At the same time, the distortions of scale and perspective typical of Riggs' flamboyant paintings are fully in evidence. Roman Nose, a celebrated Northern Cheyenne warrior, was an apt subject for Riggs' heroic portrait. According to the ANB, "His contemporaries described [Roman Nose] as being over six feet in height and possessing great physical powers. A man of fine character, quiet and self- contained, he was held in high esteem by all the Cheyennes...and was so renowned among whites that they credited him with being a leader in a number of engagements in which he did not participate." He became active in fighting against whites only after the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864, most notably the Platte Bridge fight in 1865, along Powder River the same year, and in harassing railroad construction in 1866 and 1867. Refusing to participate in the Medicine Lodge peace treaties of the latter year, he led raids in Colorado in 1868. In the famous Battle of Beecher Island that September, his protective headdress rendered useless by violating a taboo against eating food prepared with metal, he led a fatal charge in which he was killed. Riggs may be depicting any of the engagements of these three bloody years in this painting. His purpose seems more to show Roman Nose as a mythic warrior figure than to document a specific event. Riggs created only a handful of major paintings, and they have seldom appeared on the market. The only recent auction sale of a work of similar size and scope was his 1938 painting of the Joe Lewis-Max Schmeling fight, which realized $277,500 at Sotheby's in 1999. An extraordinary and dramatic painting. Ben Bassham, THE LITHOGRAPHS OF ROBERT RIGGS (Philadelphia, 1986), passim.
(Item ID: WRCAM28902) $250,000.00