Eugene Savage: The Seminole Paintings

This is a colourful introduction to an American artist best known today as a muralist with the Works Progress Administration. Eugene Savage (1883-1978) first visited the Florida Everglades in the 1930’s, became enchanted with the local Seminole Indian tribe and spent the next 20 years depicting them.

Savages’s paintings, drawings, and watercolours not only document the Seminoles, they are also important works of art in their own right. Each presents Seminole traditions, threatened by encroachment on the Everglades, in an artistic manner reminiscent of Surrealist dreamscapes and Art Deco sensibilities.

Although Savage’s series is perhaps the most extensive painted record of the Florida Seminoles, art historians have largely overlooked these works in favour of studies of the natives of the American Plains or Southwest. This new volume provides an opportunity to re-assess the artist’s career, and offers new insights into the representation of the Seminoles in American art.