'Wild life' of pioneering artist told in new documentary film
Sandra Hale Schulman
Special to ICT
Emerging from the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe in the 1960s, Crow artist Earl Biss was a groundbreaking, dynamic, mystical, and controversial artist.
He was also wildly prolific, a student of Fritz Scholder and part of a group that included Indigenous artists Kevin Red Star and T.C. Cannon.
His sometimes-messy life is now being chronicled in a new documentary and book by filmmaker Lisa Gerstner, who had unrestricted, close access to Biss and worked with him on the project for years.
The film, “Art of Native America: Earl Biss,” which won a number of awards, is now available streaming on Amazon, Vudu, and many other platforms. The full color book is available through Amazon. The project is co-produced by Biss’s stepson, designer/artist Dante Biss-Grayson.
Gerstner told ICT she spent years on and off with Biss, in the studio filming him paint and listening to him talk. The well-researched film and book contain rare letters, photos, and remembrances from artists, art dealers, several ex-wives – he apparently had between 8 and 11 – and his stepson, Dante. He died in 1998 before everything was completed.
“I hope I did the job that Earl wanted me to do,” said Gerstner, who is not Native. “He saw drafts of the book before it was finished, but he passed away before it was published. And that’s too bad. I'm sure he would've been pleased with it.”
She continued, “My sense of responsibility was ever-so-heightened knowing he was not physically there to see the end product. I worked with the consultants, the people that knew him. It felt so important to get this story, the essence of his art and why he painted, and that he was an ambassador for the Crow tribe.”
Biss-Grayson, who contributed input and photos for the project, is pleased with the results.
“He was just a beautiful soul, a passionate soul,” he said. “I'm glad Lisa captured it the way she did. It just lays it out as far as the man, the myth and the legend, who Earl Biss was.”
Breaking barriers
Gerstner said she met Biss through a mutual friend in Aspen, Colorado, in the 1980s. The friend had decided that Gerstner should write Biss’s biography – which Gerstner thought was strange.
“I'd never written a book before,” Gerstner said. “But I had a big background in fine art and understood art history, and know what I'm looking at when I see a masterful piece of art. She introduced us, and when I met Earl at first, I was a little hesitant because he has a wild life.”
Crow artist Earl Biss, shown here in 1994, is featured in a new documentary film about his life and works, "Art of Native America: Earl Biss." The film and book about his life is by filmmaker Lisa Gerstner, who had unrestricted access for years to Biss, who helped shape contemporary Native art. Biss died suddenly in 1998 at age 51. (Photo courtesy of Lisa Gerstner)
Once she spent some time with him, however, “there was no question that I would do it,” she said.
“I was standing in front of a master painter who broke barriers in the art world,” she said. “Not just Native art, but American art and even of the art world, honestly. His work blew me away. His being, his very essence of who he was, went way beyond any wild stories about Earl. His talent was off the charts.”
Biss was not as skeptical about entrusting her with his story as she was initially about telling it.
“When I met him, I asked him, ‘I want to be your biographer, do you want to see any of my work?’ I'd only written a few articles, and he looks me over and says, ‘Nope, you're it,’” she said.
“It was just a sense that I would understand,” she said. “I believe I have done him justice from the way his friends and family who knew him well, they like how it came out.”
Biss, who suffered heart damage from rheumatic fever as a child, died from a stroke on Oct. 15, 1998, while in his studio painting. He was only 51.
‘No rules’
Biss’s Crow heritage figures prominently in his art, with dramatic landscapes of tribes traveling on horseback through misty mountain trails, and portraits of chiefs in full regalia. Splatters and bright colors permeate his work.
He came to his signature style at the Santa Fe art school.
“When the Institute of American Indian Arts first started, they just blew everybody away,” Gerstner said. “They changed Southwest art. It was a very exciting time with exciting personalities that made that happen. There were no rules, and if there were any, they broke them all and it worked.”
Crow artist Earl Biss, who helped shape contemporary Native art, said this self-portrait was too personal to exhibit. The painting, "All Things Pass," shows him weeping with his heart ripped out. A new documentary film about his life and works, "Art of Native America: Earl Biss," became available for streaming in 2023. The film and book is by filmmaker Lisa Gerstner, who had unrestricted access for years to Biss. Biss died suddenly in 1998 at age 51. (Photo courtesy of Lisa Gerstner)
The book and the film complement each other, as there are certain stories that could only be told if one had actually been there, which she was.
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“Rather than third-person in the book, I made it first person in a way that I'm just barely present, because I wanted it to feel like whoever’s reading it, that they were right there listening to every word Earl was saying and watching what he does,” she said. “And it’s the same way we approached the documentary. I'm off-camera all that time, but the questions that I asked ….got right to the point, and not only in the value of his art but to the heart of things.”
One famous story about Biss and his eccentricity happened when Gerstner was there filming. A collector had purchased a portrait of a multi-generational Crow family for $60,000 that Biss said was not totally finished. The collector brought it back, but when Biss got it in his studio a wild hair took over him and he laughingly smeared abstract streaks of paint all over it.
The collector was shocked and speechless.
“That was interesting to be present for that whole thing,” Gerstner said. “When he started painting over it, I’m thinking, ‘Should I stop him? Uh, no. I'm just supposed to film and write down what's happening.’
“And then he invited me to pick up a brush. ‘You paint on it!’ And I said, ‘No, that's your painting.’ That was quite an experience.”
Biss later made another painting like the one he had destroyed for the buyer.
“He's a true artist. He couldn't help it,” she said. “There's nothing you can do about that behavior. He was set in his ways. They have their quirks. Sometimes it works for them, sometimes it works against them, but that's the way they are.”
Biss married acclaimed artist Gina Gray, who had a son, Dante, from a former marriage. Dante was 6 years old when they married, and he appears in the film giving memories of his stepfather. He has adopted a variation of his mother's name, Grayson.
“I helped give some input and I'm in there as far as interviewing and I'm just really happy that it finally is out,” Biss-Grayson told ICT. “I know that was a big project of his right before he passed, that he wanted to capture it all. And it's just so many things to capture.”
Biss-Grayson said he lived with Biss in Aspen, Carbondale and Santa Fe. Biss-Grayson’s mother was with Biss for three years, and Biss-Grayson continued his relationship with him after the breakup.
“He had a colorful life,” Biss-Grayson said. “I was always behind the scenes, and I knew him when he had $5 and I knew him when he had $500,000. I was in the trusted circle, and he adopted me in the Crow tribe. I was six to nine, and then later on, when I was in my early teens, I lived with him, just me and him, up in Aspen. I was 21 when he passed away.”
Filmmaker and author Lisa Gerstner's new documentary, "Art of Native America: Earl Biss," tells the story of the pioneering artist who helped shape contemporary Native art. Gerstner, who had unrestricted access for years to Biss, also wrote a companion book. Biss died suddenly in 1998 at age 51. (Photo courtesy of Lisa Gerstner)
Biss-Grayson said they had talked about working together in Santa Fe.
“I was going to be his apprentice and his studio assistant, and then right around that time in Santa Fe he passed, and I joined the military right after that,” he said.
Biss-Grayson did several tours of duty overseas before returning to New Mexico and becoming an artist and designer. He provided photos for the project as well as his input.
Looking ahead
Biss-Grayson also helped promote the film, traveling to film festivals and giving interviews to help stir up interest.
“He was a big part of the contemporary Native art group,” he said, “part of that whole wave of everything culturally and politically.”
Now that the book and film are out, Gerstner has plans to make a feature film of Biss’s life.
“The world is better because he was here and all the people's lives he touched, even with the wild stories,” Gerstner told ICT. “Even in the paintings that look like they could be from hundreds of years ago, he said, ‘That's the consciousness of how it is right now on the Crow Nation.’”
She recalls Biss bringing out one painting, “All Things Pass,” that is a self-portrait showing him weeping.
“He said, ‘This is a personal painting. This isn't one that I even want to put in a gallery, it's so personal,’” she said. “His heart area is empty because your life passes, your culture will pass or change or morph. Even the world will pass at some point. That painting really moved me. Paintings like that go beyond culture; that kind of compassion is of the divine.”
Correction: This story has been updated to clarify that the mother of designer/artist Dante Biss-Grayson is acclaimed artist Gina Gray, Osage, who died in 2014. Dante uses a version of her name and his step-father's name as his own.
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