Tweed Museum of Art

Drawings by Frank Big Bear

September 30, 2008 – March 22, 2009

Opening Reception, Sunday October 5, 2008, 2-4 pm

The Tweed Museum of Art is pleased to announce a major new exhibition featuring the drawings of artist Frank Big Bear. A resident of Minneapolis since 1968, Big Bear was born and raised on Minnesota’s White Earth Reservation. He studied briefly with the legendary Ojibwe painter George Morrison at the University of Minnesota, but Big Bear is essentiallyself-taught artist, relying on his dreams, intuitions, and on influences from his own study of art history and literature. Big Bear’s art has a powerful energy all its own, but evident in it are the space- and time-fracturing effects of Cubism and Surrealism. Fritz Scholder’s socio-political stances, and George Morrison’s abstracted landscape designs, also influence his drawings. Frank Big Bear’s art has achieved cult status among a younger generation of artists, paying homage to traditional Ojibwe culture with a contemporary search for spiritual meaning.

“Big Bear’s natural reserve keeps him from any phony pretense toward healing magic or cryptic wisdom. Answers come not from quick self-help fixes, but from patient looking into life’s mystery,” stated Doug Hanson in a 2006 Minneapolis Star Tribune review.

The exhibition begins with small works from the early 1980s, when Big Bear started working with color pencil, a medium he is closely identified with. His early works focus on personal themes, including his immediate family and his cultural identity with the White Earth Ojibwe. Floral Man, Self-Portrait, is a frontal view of the artist in a beaded vest, with a vine covering his face, like a botanical tattoo. Larger, more visually complex works from the 1990s have broader themes of social and political issues, reflected in titles like Stagnant Assimilation, and White Earth Pow-Wow. Big Bear’s recent works, often monumental in scale, combine American Indian spiritual themes, especially that of the shaman, warrior, and the attributes of various animals. Above all, the artist’s intensely colored drawings urge viewers to consider their images, environments, and personages from multiple points of view.

“Like waking from a dream and piecing the memory of it together in a linear, sequential order, we find that things overlap, intersect in many places at the same time. Yet unlike recalling a dream to mind, the mere act causing us to loose details, Big Bear’s work explodes into color and allows the viewer time to peer into his dream,” states artist Andrea Carlson.

This is the first museum show of Frank Big Bear’s art in over a decade, the first to assemble so many works in one place, and the first to be accompanied by a book documenting his art and life. Designed by Bill Thorburn of Carmichael, Lynch, Thorburn of Minneapolis, the book features dozens of images from throughout Big Bear’s career, an interview with the artist, and contributions by art writer Doug Hanson and artist/writer Andrea Carlson.

Due to the artist’s often reclusive nature and his wariness of the art world, Big Bear’s art has appeared only sporadically, but it is met with great enthusiasm whenever it has been shown. As a demonstration of that enthusiasm, Big Bear was awarded one of three Bush Foundation “Enduring Visions” awards in June of 2008. This five-year, $100,000 award, one of the largest artist’s fellowships in the country, is meant to foster the work of mature artists residing in Minnesota and North and South Dakota. In addition, Big Bear has received awards and fellowships from the McKnight Foundation, the Jerome Foundation, and the Minnesota State Arts Board. His artworks have been collected by the Walker Art Center, Plains Art Museum, Fargo, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, the British Museum, London, the Tweed Museum of Art, and numerous private and corporate collections. Big Bear’s work is non-exclusively represented by Bockley Gallery in Minneapolis.

The exhibition is supported by a gift from an Anonymous Donor, and by a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board and the National Endowment for the Arts. The exhibition opens in conjunction with the opening of the premier installation of the Richard and Dorothy Nelson American Indian Collection, one of the largest gifts of art to the Tweed Museum in its 58-year history.


*Drawings by Frank Big Bear* September 30, 2008 – March 22, 2009 Opening Reception, Sunday October 5, 2008, 2-4 pm The Tweed Museum of Art is pleased to announce a major new exhibition featuring the drawings of artist Frank Big Bear. A resident of Minneapolis since 1968, Big Bear was born and raised on Minnesota’s White Earth Reservation. He studied briefly with the legendary Ojibwe painter George Morrison at the University of Minnesota, but Big Bear is essentiallyself-taught artist, relying on his dreams, intuitions, and on influences from his own study of art history and literature. Big Bear’s art has a powerful energy all its own, but evident in it are the space- and time-fracturing effects of Cubism and Surrealism. Fritz Scholder’s socio-political stances, and George Morrison’s abstracted landscape designs, also influence his drawings. Frank Big Bear’s art has achieved cult status among a younger generation of artists, paying homage to traditional Ojibwe culture with a contemporary search for spiritual meaning. “Big Bear’s natural reserve keeps him from any phony pretense toward healing magic or cryptic wisdom. Answers come not from quick self-help fixes, but from patient looking into life’s mystery,” stated Doug Hanson in a 2006 Minneapolis Star Tribune review. The exhibition begins with small works from the early 1980s, when Big Bear started working with color pencil, a medium he is closely identified with. His early works focus on personal themes, including his immediate family and his cultural identity with the White Earth Ojibwe. Floral Man, Self-Portrait, is a frontal view of the artist in a beaded vest, with a vine covering his face, like a botanical tattoo. Larger, more visually complex works from the 1990s have broader themes of social and political issues, reflected in titles like Stagnant Assimilation, and White Earth Pow-Wow. Big Bear’s recent works, often monumental in scale, combine American Indian spiritual themes, especially that of the shaman, warrior, and the attributes of various animals. Above all, the artist’s intensely colored drawings urge viewers to consider their images, environments, and personages from multiple points of view. “Like waking from a dream and piecing the memory of it together in a linear, sequential order, we find that things overlap, intersect in many places at the same time. Yet unlike recalling a dream to mind, the mere act causing us to loose details, Big Bear’s work explodes into color and allows the viewer time to peer into his dream,” states artist Andrea Carlson. This is the first museum show of Frank Big Bear’s art in over a decade, the first to assemble so many works in one place, and the first to be accompanied by a book documenting his art and life. Designed by Bill Thorburn of Carmichael, Lynch, Thorburn of Minneapolis, the book features dozens of images from throughout Big Bear’s career, an interview with the artist, and contributions by art writer Doug Hanson and artist/writer Andrea Carlson. Due to the artist’s often reclusive nature and his wariness of the art world, Big Bear’s art has appeared only sporadically, but it is met with great enthusiasm whenever it has been shown. As a demonstration of that enthusiasm, Big Bear was awarded one of three Bush Foundation “Enduring Visions” awards in June of 2008. This five-year, $100,000 award, one of the largest artist’s fellowships in the country, is meant to foster the work of mature artists residing in Minnesota and North and South Dakota. In addition, Big Bear has received awards and fellowships from the McKnight Foundation, the Jerome Foundation, and the Minnesota State Arts Board. His artworks have been collected by the Walker Art Center, Plains Art Museum, Fargo, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, the British Museum, London, the Tweed Museum of Art, and numerous private and corporate collections. Big Bear’s work is non-exclusively represented by Bockley Gallery in Minneapolis. The exhibition is supported by a gift from an Anonymous Donor, and by a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board and the National Endowment for the Arts. The exhibition opens in conjunction with the opening of the premier installation of the Richard and Dorothy Nelson American Indian Collection, one of the largest gifts of art to the Tweed Museum in its 58-year history.