The Premier Magazine of the West: Cowboys & Indians
Earl Biss: The Spirit Who Walks Among His People
BY CHADD SCOTT
JULY 17, 2024
Close friends, historians, and artists shed light on the life of Earl Biss, the Crow artist who helped spearhead the contemporary Indigenous art movement.
“My favorite artist is Earl Biss. No. 2: Vincent van Gogh. When I say Earl Biss is my favorite artist, I’m not grading on a scale. I don’t mean my favorite painter or Native American artist; I mean my favorite artist.
I’ve felt a spiritual connection to Biss’ paintings, and him, from the moment I first saw his work. It’s unlike anything before or since. That first time was at The James Museum of Western and Wildlife Art in St. Petersburg, Florida, and I remember the moment as distinctly as I recall seeing my wife for the first time.
Lisa Gerstner’s documentaryEarl Biss: The Spirit Who Walks Among His People, released in late April 2023, shares Biss’ genius and spirit and Gerstner’s personal background with Biss.
Gerstner first met Biss at a party in Aspen, Colorado, in 1994 through a mutual friend, who thought Gerstner should write Biss’ biography. Gerstner was not a professional writer and, with only a few published articles under her belt, had never attempted a project so ambitious.
In her book Experiences with Earl Biss: The Spirit Who Walks Among His People, Gerstner recalls the artist sizing her up at the party. Without fanfare, she asked him plainly, “Am I your biographer?”
“Yes. I can just tell,” he answered, never having talked to or spent any time with Gerstner.”
Chad Scott, The Premier Magazine of the West: Cowboy’s & Indians.
