Colors are Sandstone beige and Rust....tones of Paprika Plains, Sedona Red Rock. Many subliminal features in this piece. Lone Black and gray Bison surrounded by pale green blowing grasses. Profile of a Native American in the shape of a mountain, looking up. Above the buffalo, white, ghost - like bison ancestors showing thousands of miles of treks and trails, giving history and context, reminiscent of the Trail of Tears. (Taking place in the 1830s, the Trail of Tears was the forced and brutal relocation of approximately 100,000 indigenous people (belonging to Cherokee, Creek, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Seminole, among other nations) living between Michigan, Louisiana, and Florida to land west of the Mississippi River. Motivated by gold and land, Congress (under President Andrew Jackson) passed the Indian Removal Act by a slim and controversial margin in 1830. The Cherokees resisted removal through every possible means. Even Junaluska, who had saved Andrew Jackson’s life at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, traveled to Washington to plead the Cherokee’s cause, but Jackson would not see him.)
Frame measures 25-1/2" tall by 18-1/8" wide, Well matted and framed under glass.
Artist Bio: Johnny Tiger, Jr. (born 1940) is a Muscogee Creek-Seminole artist from Oklahoma.
Following is the obituary of the artist.
Johnny Moore Tiger, Jr. was a full blood Muscogee Creek-Seminole artist from Oklahoma.
He was born on February 13, 1940 in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. His parents were Lucinda Lou Lewis and the John M. Tiger. His younger brother, the late Jerome Tiger, was a celebrated artist.
As a child, he traveled with his grandfather Rev. Coleman Lewis, a well known Baptist missionary within the Muscogee Creek Nation. While traveling, Coleman taught his grandson the history and cosmology of their people in the Mvskoke, their tribal language.
He attended Chilocco Indian School and graduated from Muskogee Central High School in 1958. After graduation, he served in the United States Air Force.