Collaborating on a Cigar Store Indian

My first job was at a Pittsburgh advertising studio. Another artist there was Paul Rendel, a very talented illustrator who became both a friend and mentor. Paul enjoyed carving wood, and when I said that his front door looked like a really fun project — he had carved a beautiful sun on it — he suggested collaborating on a wood carving.

I had just finished an illustration with a cigar store Indian, so that's the project I proposed. Paul liked the idea, too. The year was 1976, the Bicentennial.

We decided to do three things in preparation:

• We each read different books on wood carving.
• We drew our vision of an Indian, independently of each other.
• And we visited the Smithsonian's collection of folk art.

left, photo by Edward S. Curtis  |  center and right, the Smithsonian Institution

Our drawings are long gone, but Paul's concept was an accurate depiction of a Sioux warrior, while my concept was a more romanticized and traditional cigar store Indian, which as you can see by the Smithsonian figures above (center and right), was purely fictional.

Our final piece, named Kicking Bear,

was a happy compromise.

Here's Kicking Bear in Paul's garage, at an early stage of the carving. Because uncured wood has a tendency to split, we used wood that was at least 80 years old, salvaged from the Queen City Railroad Station in Cumberland, Maryland. Paul tried various glues for the lamination, including marine glue, but settled on Elmer's Glue.

Because Paul had the working space, and because he was the more experienced carver, Paul did the major part of the carving, and I did detail work (always the detail man). When the carving was finished at Paul's house, it moved to my apartment, where I did most of the painting.

Smithsonian Magazine

Kicking Bear was a real person, an Oglala Sioux who was both a warrior and a medicine man, and sometimes called a prophet. He took part in the battle known as Custer's Last Stand, and shortly thereafter made a pictograph of the entire battle. Above is a detail. (Kicking Bear became a friend of Frederick Remington, and it's believed that Remington had asked him to do the drawing.)

The skirt on Kicking Bear — the statue — faithfully displays that rendering. Above, and at the front of the skirt, are chiefs and medicine men, the battle high command. Below, Custer is depicted alone and unscalped. Kicking Bear explained that the outlines superimposed over the dead cavalrymen were their souls rising.

Around his neck, Kicking Bear wears a bear claw necklace from which is suspended a medal from President Grant. The carved and painted medal replicates an actual one that states, "Liberty Justice and Equality," which of course was a broken promise, one of many.

While Kicking Bear offers a pipe (presumably a peace pipe) he holds a tomahawk behind his back. He appears to have one foot upon a stone, but from the rear, the viewer sees a skull.

The figure of Kicking Bear nests into the base, which proclaims on the front that the tobacco is "Mild & Mellow."

The two sides of the base depict a tobacco farm at different seasons. One side shows the crop in full growth, while the other side side shows the tobacco being dried, or "cured." Note that the barn sides open during the curing process.

Pittsburgh Post Gazette

And here we are in a very posed photograph from long ago. Paul Rendel is on the left, and I'm on the right. Needless to say, I didn't actually do any staining in dress slacks!

The carving of Kicking Bear was a year-long project for Paul and me, and Paul's wife endured sawdust in her house for much of that time. A selling price was established for the carving, and I eventually bought Paul's share, though not before Kicking Bear was displayed at several art shows. I later gifted the cigar store Indian to my older brother, at whose home it now resides.
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The Origin of Cigar Store Indians

 from work originally by Helmle Hiatt | Index of American Design

Museum guides and armchair historians will sometimes tell you that the cigar store Indian was positioned outside tobacco shops for the benefit of illiterate patrons. While there's truth in that, it's not why cigar store Indians became so popular in the 19th century, and the real story is far more interesting.

detail from "Dockside Marriage," by Charles Wysocki

It starts with ship figureheads. From the time of the 16th-century galleons, bows of ships were adorned with figureheads, and shipbuilding ports attracted ship carvers to make them. Figureheads were massive wooden sculptures, and they were a beautiful art form.

mysticseaport.org

This double figurehead is on display at The Museum of America and the Sea, in Mystic Seaport, Connecticut.

from Brian T. Bolten  |  historysstory.blogspot.com

On two days of the American Civil War — March 8-9, 1862 — in a naval battle at Hampton Roads, Virginia, the Confederacy attempted to break a Union blockade. The CSS Virginia (which is known more familiarly as the Merrimack) had successes the first day. On the second day, March 9, it came up against the Union's USS Monitor. It was the first time two ironclad warships engaged in battle, and though the battle was inconclusive, it forever changed naval history. Navies around the world realized that wooden ships, and particularly wooden battleships, were a thing of the past. (You can read more about the famous "Battle of the Ironclads" at Brian T. Bolten's excellent site, here.)

And so those ship carvers, many of them young men, scouted for and found two areas that would be appropriate for their talent.

Painted Ponies  |  William Manns • Peggy Shank • Marianne Stevens

One was carousel figures, like this equestrian horse by Daniel Muller, who is considered the greatest of the carousel carvers.

Painted Ponies  |  William Manns • Peggy Shank • Marianne Stevens

A shop of carousel carvers from around 1900 was a busy place of mass production.

antiquesandfineart.com

The second industry that ship carvers "carved out" for themselves was that of the cigar store Indian. This handsome figure takes a place of honor in the living room of collectors of American folk art. Today, antique cigar store Indians sell in the range of $50,000. The one above probably cost a lot more because it is the work of Samuel A. Robb, who is regarded as the master of the American cigar store Indian. Recently, a carving by Robb of the English comic character, Punch, sold for $542,400.

According to Terry Kovel, by 1900 there were 100,000 cigar store Indians in use. But slowly, as that Civil War generation of ship carvers died off in the early 1900s, so did the popularity of the carousel and the cigar store Indian.

My next posting will feature my own cigar store Indian.

It was a collaboration with another artist —

a fun project and a good story!

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