T.C. Cannon

T.C. Cannon (1946–1978), born Tommy Wayne Cannon in Lawton, Oklahoma, of Caddo/Kiowa heritage, became one of the defining figures of the Native American art renaissance of the 1970s during a career cut tragically short. He attended the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, where he studied under Fritz Scholder, and later trained at the San Francisco Art Institute. Like Scholder, Cannon subverted romantic stereotypes of Native Americans with confrontational paintings of astonishing originality: a Crow chief poses in front of Van Gogh prints; a warrior wears platform shoes; a collector reads in an armchair surrounded by Plains-culture objects. His large, flat canvases draw equally on Pop Art, expressionism, and Plains Indian pictorial traditions. In fewer than fifteen years of production he left behind a body of work that challenged and expanded what Native American art could be. He died in a car accident in Santa Fe at 31. His work is held in the Smithsonian, the Heard Museum, and major institutions across the country.