Attributed to Ira Diamond Gerald Cassidy (1878-1933)
What an Indian Thinks
unsigned, titled on a gallery label (on the reverse)
oil on canvas
46 x 46 in.
framed 53 1/2 x 53 1/2 in.
Painted circa 1915.
Footnotes:
Provenance
Edenhurst Gallery, Los Angeles, California.
Private collection, Utah, from the above.

Exhibited
Salt Lake City, Utah, Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Bierstadt to Warhol: American Indians in the West, February 15 – August 11, 2013.

Literature
Ben Fulton, 'New UMFA exhibit chronicles the American Indian in art', The Salt Lake Tribune, February 22, 2013, https://archive.sltrib.com.

The present work, painted circa 1915, bears hallmarks of the artist Gerald Cassidy's work but is unsigned. The composition presents a seated Native American man and his standing horse against a dramatically billowing storm cloud. The figures are positioned at an elevation looking out toward a vast Western American landscape. The painting was included in the Utah Museum of Fine Arts 2013 exhibition Bierstadt to Warhol: American Indians in the West and was the leading subject of The Salt Lake Tribune's review of the show.

Writer Ben Fulton comments, 'The most intriguing work on display as part of the Utah Museum of Fine Arts' latest exhibit has no artist's name on the lower right-hand corner of its frame.

As a result, we know no backstory about the artist's life, motivations or unique methods. All that's left to contemplate is the painting itself: the stark beauty of a turquoise sky, the rising cloud that splits its horizon, and a lone American Indian atop a hill, sitting next to his horse, there to behold it all.

It's tempting to view this one image as if it informed all the works included in Bierstadt to Warhol: American Indians in the West. That's because the painting's title, What an Indian Thinks, plays thematic flip-side to the exhibit's wider concerns of cultural identity, deconstruction of stereotypes and the appropriation of images from outside native circles.' 1

As Fulton writes, the present work addresses directly a re-consideration of centuries long exploration of depictions of indigenous American peoples in Western Art practice, while presenting a thoughtful and tightly rendered figural vignette situated in an expansive and dynamic Western scene.

1 Ben Fulton, 'New UMFA exhibit chronicles the American Indian in art', The Salt Lake Tribune, February 22, 2013, https://archive.sltrib.com.

The painting is unlined and retains the original stretcher bars. Some keys replaced. Stretcher bar creases and craquelure throughout. A 1 x 1/2in 'F' shaped tear from the front with some resulting specks of loss in the lower left near the edge. Under UV light examination, fluorescence due to pigment. No further condition issues to report.

In a gilt over red clay bole and gesso carved frame.