07/08/2026
In this work on paper, Harry Fonseca dresses Coyote as Buffalo Bill. Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West shows (1883–1910s) perpetuated enduring, often racist, stereotypes by portraying Native Americans as ‘savage’ antagonists to civilized progress. The shows featured, and thus popularized depictions of Natives in loincloths, war bonnets, and face paint, attacking white settlers, reinforcing the stereotype of the dangerous “other.”
Margaret Archuleta writes, “The stereotype of the stoic Noble Savage doesn’t allow for the Indian to laugh. Despite white stereotype of stoic and frozen faced Indians, humor is at the heart of much Indian life, culture and art. In part, that is because the only way to survive in the face of much of what White society has done to the Indian is to laugh—both at the white man and at the irony of one’s own plight.”
Coyote as Buffalo Bill was a part of Harry Fonseca’s series entitled “Coyote’s Wild and Woolly West Show,” first shown at Elaine Horwitch Gallery in Santa Fe in 1987. In this series, Fonseca also depicted Coyote as the stereotypical depiction of the Plains Indian deftly controlling the entire structure of the narrative.
Image: Harry Fonseca, “Coyote as Buffalo Bill”, 1987. Acrylic on paper. 40 x 26 inches (unframed). 48 1/4 x 34 3/4 inches (framed)
