Dig It - 12/14/23
Hello Again All You Fellow Seekers Out There! Today, we are going to look at a Superb Northern Plains Buffalo Parfleche. This piece dates from the 1860s to the early 1880s. It has to, because it is buffalo hide and parfleche are made and decorated while the hide is still fresh and wet. By the mid 1880s the American Bison was virtually extinct, ergo no fresh hides.
One of the reasons I find parfleche envelopes so appealing is their relationship to the Abstract Expressionist movement. To me it appears that the Abstract expressionists starting with Piet Mondrian, and continuing through Jasper Johns, Frank Stella and Roy Lichtenstein, were more paralleling parfleche designs than being directly influenced by them. The Native American parfleche designs certainly pre-date the Abstract expressionists, but both were using predominately primary colors, lines and blocks of color to produce bold and striking minimalist patterns. I was fortunate to have met Roy Lichtenstein on several occasions and I know he was certainly aware of parfleche, but I don’t believe he ever collected them. I think that both the earlier Native American artists and the later Abstract Expressionists were trying to achieve the same goal of powerful, minimalist graphic patterns that spoke to the human soul.
Back to this parfleche. The hide has been beautifully prepared, the colors are still incredibly bright and crisp, and the graphics are off the chart. The WOW factor is amazingly high! WOW, WOW, WOW! If you are going to have only one parfleche envelope it should be this one!