This is Mort Künstler limited edition print - Cheyenne Winter.
Paper Prints Reproduction technique: Collotype print. Each print is numbered and signed by the artist and accompanied by a Statement of Authenticity.
Image Size: 18” x 24” • Overall Size: 22” x 27¾”
Signed Artist’s Proof • Edition Size: 50
Published: 1982
Mort Künstler’s Comments This was the first of three paintings I did in the early 1980s depicting a raiding party. Cheyenne Winter gave me a chance to create a tranquil snow scene, while at the same time use the warriors coming out of the shadows to give the viewer a sense of impending violence. A patch of sunlight coming through the snow-laden trees of the forest allowed me to use the brightest colors in the painting on the two leading braves. The third warrior in line, who is about to come into the sunlight, is a member of the Red Shield society of dog soldiers.
Discipline and tactical planning for war fell to the dog soldiers, members of fraternal warrior societies inside the Cheyenne tribes. One of their traditional assignments was to fight rear-guard actions. During one conflict, each dog soldier drove a stake into the frozen earth and tied his ankle to it with a leather thong, showing his commitment to his duty. In that fight each dog soldier died at his stake.
The men shown here are Cheyenne in winter war paint. Winter was not a battle season but from the 1860s onward, the time and place of war were the choosing of the whites, not the Cheyennes’.
