100% american
lillian st cyr
Lillian St Cyr, based on one of the view photos that I could find. The viewer has to look up at her, contrary to how society was. then.
Close-up with expressive eyes
The symbol of the Ho-Chunk
Silent on screen, but echoing over a century
Lillian St. Cyr a.k.a. Red Wing was the first Native American woman to star in a major Hollywood film.
Identifying as Ho-Chunk, born on the Winnebago Reservation and educated at the infamous Carlisle Indian Industrial School — a place designed to erase Native identity through forced assimilation.
Instead, St Cyr stood center-frame. She advised. Designed. Performed. Spoke. Cowboy films were part of the air I breathed as a kid — stereotypes included. This work is part tribute, part correction. A way to confront what I once absorbed.
Materials: Acrylic, oil and charcoal on Fabriano paper
Size: 70 x 90 cm
Price: €1,000
Feel free to contact me by filling out the form for any inquiry :Echoes from the Silent Reel
Lillian St. Cyr was prolific, but the survival rate for early films is brutally low. What we can see today is a sliver — one important preserved short (White Fawn’s Devotion) and a few rare items (Cheyenne’s Bride).