When I was little, my dad worked in the printing and publishing business. Later, he started his own small print shop. He brought home big, boxed paper samples for me to draw on. Different sizes, weight, texture and opacity. Dad showed me the difference between cover stock and card stock, and named all the colors—much different than my Crayolas. “Canary yellow” and “Salmon” were specific in those days to paper. My father knew that the gift of paper would be far more appealing than a new Barbie.
Among those samples from Northwest Potlatch Paper Company were beautiful prints of Canadian Mounties astride their horses, often alongside muscled Native Americans astride their own steeds. Every now and then, a print would feature a Mountie playing with huskies.
To a nascent artist and animal lover, this was heaven. I sat on the living room floor and sorted through the papers over and over again, deciding which to color on first. I studied every detail of the printed images, drinking in the evocative vistas and adventures. The experience reinforced my interest in art (not to mention dogs and horses). It also puffed up my chest a bit, since we lived in Minnesota and the images were just like “home.”
Of the 16 artists hired by Northwest, the artist whose work I distinctly remember was Arnold Friberg. He was the most prolific of the artists commissioned by Northwest (Potlatch) Paper Company, so it’s no surprise that his work showed up most often in the boxes my dad brought home. Over the course of 33 years (between 1937 and 1970), he sold paintings or reproduction rights on 208 Mountie subjects to Northwest Paper. Friberg was also well known for his Western and Biblical illustrations. The latter interest led to a monumental painting and costume design project for Cecil B. DeMille’s film The Ten Commandments, which earned Friberg an Academy Award.
His style was distinctly representational and overtly masculine. Men and horses alike boasted chiseled jaws and soulful eyes. Postures were perfect. Manes and tales ripped across his oil paintings in a deft display of motion, while the implacable Mountie sat strong and tall. He was the yang to Norman Rockwell’s yin, but their styles were similar, in that their subjects were both heroic and routine. No surprise, they studied together in New York before WWII.
Friberg’s narrative (most likely assigned by Northwest Paper management) ranged from Mountie as rugged outdoorsman (warming himself in the shadows of the night by a small, hand-made fire, snowshoes upended and wedged securely in the snow); to upholder of the law for Native Americans (victims of cattle and horse rustling); to Mountie as proselytizer (reading the Bible to a group of Native American children); to something of a cross between mom and handyman (reattaching the arm of a doll for a Native American girl). Always, binoculars and a map were at hand. Northwest Potlach Paper, with the help of Arnold Friberg, had created the quintessential manly man. And no surprise that Native Americans were expressly featured in Friberg’s paintings—a Potlatch was a Pacific Northwest Native American festival with weddings and stories, feasting, dancing and trading.
The flesh and muscles of Friberg’s horses rippled with hues of amber, sienna and umber. The effervescent glow of Friberg’s white snow, contrasted against shadows of cobalt, ultramarine and violet, evoked intensely frigid scenes. His colors suggest the palette of forerunner Maxfield Parrish. Friberg’s palette, like his vista, was rich with depth. Of course, the Canadian Mounted Police wore bright red, which again speaks to Friberg’s palette—vivid. Contrasting. Intense.
To my immense pleasure, horses were a recurring theme in Friberg’s work. One of his most famous pieces featured a dappled, white horse exhaling through his nostrils a warm mist into the cold, night air. Beside him, George Washington kneeled in snow. “Prayer at Valley Forge” was designed for the 1976 U.S. Bicentennial.
Friberg died in 2010. But his memory and my childhood memories live on. I continue my love affair with paper and paint through my own work. And I think about Dad almost every time I run copies through my printer.
Arnold Friberg, “Mountie and Native Leader.”
Arnold Friberg, “Prayer at Mount Vernon.”
Click on the text below for more images. (Better yet, visit the Univ. of Minnesota, Duluth museum in person!) http://www.d.umn.edu/tma/collections/mountie.html
Does anyone remember these images from childhood? Were they as evocative and resonant for you as they were for me? I’d love to hear from you!
aminutefromterry 