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• James Bama(American, 1926 – 2022)
• 1980
• Oil paint on masonite
• Funds from the Contemporary Realism Group, 1998.215

Non-Indigenous artists have often depicted Indigenous peoples as a “vanishing” or “vanished” race. This painting similarly presents a romanticized vision of the Indigenous peoples. In this painting, a young Indigenous man is sitting on a horse draped with a Navajo textile, holding a lance and shield. However, contemporary Indigenous peoples no longer dress like the figure in the painting. While Indigenous peoples are often consumed as historicized and stereotyped images, they are now, and always have been, contemporaries in every moment.