Article: Capturing the West

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Artist portrays vibrant images of Native American, Old West life

By Jorie Parr, Special to The Desert Sun
August 3, 2003

He pulled a little red wagon down a country road, headed with his mother and sister to the place where they handed out free food. His dad had a stroke and was unable to work, that is, if there were any work.

Depression children understood that when it came to making dreams come true they were on their own. It helped if you had talent. Today Charles Schridde lives on a two-acre estate in the Movie Colony of Palm Springs, swims with dolphins and his beautiful wife on holiday in Hawaii, and does what he wants to do. He paints cowboys and Indians.

A septuagenarian who doesn’t know he’s old, Schridde works 12 hours a day (OK, including naps). He rises before dawn for laps in his saltwater pool. "I swim the sun up. It’s so beautiful watching the sun come down on the trees, the chairs around the trees, and then it hits me when I’m drying off. Wow."

Schridde’s first Palm Springs house was in Las Palmas, once owned by a childhood hero, Hoot Gibson. His current home was built by Prescott T. Stevens, the developer who erected the El Mirador hotel (the site now of Desert Regional Medical Center) in the 1920s. The beam-ceiling studio on the grounds was designed and lavishly furnished -- cowhide rugs, plush sofas -- by his wife, Susan Schridde.

Back in Michigan, the house where he spent most of his boyhood was so old it was put together with square nails, had never been painted, lacked electricity and indoor plumbing. So don’t tell Charlie Schridde about hard times.

After his father’s death, he moved with his mother and 7-year-older sister ("It was like having another mother") to Chicago. They shared a two-room apartment with rollaway beds. "I used my art for identity," as in "I don’t have all this stuff, but I’m an artist."

On a youth scholarship at the city art institute at 12, young Charles found himself drawing nude models. Hmmm. Well, "when you’re actually painting, you have to concentrate. You don’t get sexual ideas," he said.

At 17, he created a remarkable portrait, "Woman in Black Dress," with a technique he learned from a library book. Layers of glaze over watercolor achieved a glow of realism. That picture still has a place of honor in his hallway gallery.

Schridde went in the Navy toward the end of World War II, and was kicked out of officer’s candidate school for slipping out to party on New Year’s Eve. His first career was as an advertising illustrator in postwar Detroit. On the Motorola (television pioneers) account, his "Man and Woman in Trees with TV" ad ran in the centerfold of leading magazines of the day, Life and Saturday Evening Post.

His picture of a ’50s Chrysler New Yorker surrounded by polo ponies and players would also featured in Life.

Going with the flow

When photography out-distanced illustration, Schridde rode along. No problem."Photography is so much easier than painting." In this new arena, he loved taking chances. Hanging out of an open-cockpit helicopter shooting the Sedona landscape. Facing off a grizzly bear with Robert Redford.

This enormous creature was supposed to chase Redford, but it just wouldn’t. Finally, the exasperated movie star slapped the bear. It was a terrifying moment, but the animal simply ran away.

Schridde also photographed the iconic Chuck Yeager who broke the sound barrier. And motorcar tycoon John Delorean, in pre-sting days, and found him "a really nice guy."

Approaching what other people consider retirement age, Schridde moved to Laguna Beach to pursue his first love, painting. (He’d always maintained his skills at sketching class.) There he fell in love with Susan as well. On their first date, he propped her up on a Ritz-Carlton barstool and painted her portrait. He told her to please keep still and shut up.

Apart from the instant rapport with Susan, Schridde had never felt quite at home in Laguna Beach. But when they moved to the desert it was a different story. Early on, one of Palm Springs’ first citizens made a friendly gesture.

Frank Bogert (mayor 1958-66 and 1982-88) saw Schridde’s book, "Western Impressionism" (2000), and called on the Palm Springs Desert Museum to include him in a show. Bogert, the consummate horseman, appreciates Schridde’s attention to detail. "Everything is perfect and I’ve checked them all. The bridles are right … so many of the other Western artists don’t get the latigo (saddle strap) right."

Like many others, Bogert praises Schridde for capturing movement. "His bucking broncos! That horse is really moving.

"These are not like calendar paintings; they are real art."

Western art, of course, is growing in demand. ARTnews (May 2003) headlines it "the new gold rush." Frederic Remington, whose work Schridde remembers once went for $25, is now fetching $5.2 million dollars for a painting. Spurring interest are recent major exhibitions for Remington (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.) and then "Windows on the West" at the Art Institute of Chicago.

A walking gold mine

Schridde’s paintings seem a bargain topping off at $25,000.

Tom Gianetto, director and co-owner of Edenhurst Gallery in Los Angeles, calls the Schriddes "one of the best buys around." The gallery itself has invested in about five paintings. Gianetto talks about "the fresh, vibrant, always invigorating subject matter … evocative, colorful … living legacies of the Old West." He says that the artist, now "one of the best kept secrets, is destined for greatness."

The appeal of the "John Wayne genre" of black/white, good/bad themes may be a reaction to the aftermath of "Freud and his why-why-why," Schridde thinks.

His "Van Gogh Bull," depicting a cowboy charging out of the frame, is a tribute to an old master's brush stroke bravado. A favorite work, Schridde put it on the cover of his book and had it reproduced on a poster.

Nowadays he’s kind of gone through his rodeo roundup, and is doing a lot of Native Americans in series, such as mothers with children. For inspiration, he recently attended a pow wow in Browning, Mont., near Glacier National Park. He’d read an item about the event in the upscale magazine, Cowboys & Indians, which ran a story on Schridde in the June 2003 issue.

He spent a week staying in a small tepee on the grass, bedded down on air mattress/sleeping bag. The tepee entrance was so small he had to get down on hands and knees. He could light a fire within a stone circle in the center, but found out the hard way you have to open the door first to vent the smoke.

The Southern Blackfeet cuisine wasn’t always the best -- "Buffalo -- it is tough." But Schridde snapped away, rewarding his Native American models with tips. He was told the going rate was $25 minimum. He spent a total of $1,500, so that should keep him in ideas for some time to come.

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