Erdoes, Richard, 1912-2008

Richard Erdoes, illustrator, photographer, and author of more than a dozen books about American Indian life, was born in Vienna, Austria, on July 7, 1912. After immigrating to the United States in 1939, Erdoes embarked on a successful career as a freelance illustrator and photographer in New York City. During the mid-1960s, Erdoes became interested in the civil rights struggle and spiritual beliefs of contemporary American Indians. Outraged by conditions on reservations and fascinated by the American Indian belief systems he encountered, over the next four decades Erdoes wrote, illustrated, and edited a number of adult and children's books on American Indian cultures, folklore, and life. He became a passionate advocate for American Indian civil rights, and an avid documenter of tribal life and spiritual revitalization, particularly among the Lakota. Erdoes was involved in the legal defense of prominent American Indian activists, including Lakota medicine man Leonard Crow Dog, after the 1973 stand-off at Wounded Knee. In 1975, the Erdoes family relocated to Santa Fe where Erdoes continued to write, illustrate, and advocate for Native peoples. Erdoes died in Santa Fe on July 16, 2008.

Richard Erdoes, illustrator, photographer, and author of more than a dozen books about American Indian life, was born in Vienna, Austria to Maria Josefa Schrom on July 7, 1912. His father, Richard, was a Hungarian opera singer who had passed away a few months earlier. Upon his birth, his mother joined the household of her sister, the German actress Leopoldine (“Poldi”) Sangora. Erdoes spent his childhood surrounded by theatre actors and moving from city to city-Vienna, Berlin, Frankfurt-settling wherever his aunt and her actor husband held lengthy engagements.

When the Nazis came into power in 1933, Erdoes was a student at the Berlin Academy of Art. He established a neighborhood underground newspaper in which he began publishing anti-Hitler cartoons and caricatures. Identified by the Nazis, he fled Germany as a fugitive at the end of 1933, arriving in Austria where he enrolled in the Viennese Kunstgewerbeschule to continue his training. In Austria, Erdoes honed his cartooning skills and supported himself as a caricaturist for Tag and Stunde, two anti-Nazi newspapers. When the Germans entered Austria in 1938, Erdoes fled again, first to Paris, then London, eventually arriving in New York a year later. He married his first wife, Elsie Schulhof (died 1940), shortly after landing in the United States.

Erdoes was welcomed into the German exile community in New York, and launched a successful career as a freelance illustrator and photographer. Over the next two decades, he contributed to publications like National Geographic, American Heritage, Stage Magazine, and Life Magazine ; created cover art for record albums; and began illustrating children’s books. Erdoes met Jean Sternbergh (died 1995), an art director at Life, in 1945. The couple married in 1950, and had three children- David Richard, Eric Peter, and Jacqueline (“Jaki”) Jean.

By the mid-1960s, Erdoes was illustrating and publishing his own children’s stories while continuing to build his freelance career. During an assignment to photograph American Indian reservation life for Life, Erdoes became deeply intrigued by contemporary Native American life and spirituality. Outraged by his first-hand experience of conditions on reservations and fascinated by the American Indian belief systems he encountered, Erdoes wrote, illustrated, and edited a number of adult and children’s books on American Indian cultures, folklore, and life over the next four decades. He became a passionate advocate for American Indian civil rights, and an avid documenter of tribal life and spiritual revitalization, particularly among the Lakota.

Erdoes and his family opened their apartment in New York City to Lakota visitors and other American Indians during the early 1970s, creating a well-known gathering place for American Indian Movement (AIM) supporters and civil rights activists. Erdoes also became involved in the legal defense of a number of prominent American Indian activists, including Lakota medicine man Leonard Crow Dog, after the 1973 stand-off at Wounded Knee. In 1975, the Erdoes family relocated to Santa Fe where Erdoes continued to write, illustrate, and advocate for Native peoples.

Erdoes’s first book about an American Indian tribe was 1967’s Pueblo Indians for the Young Readers’ Indian Library series. In 1971, he collaborated with John Fire Lame Deer (1903-1976), a Lakota medicine man, on Lame Deer’s as-told-to autobiography, Lame Deer: Seeker of Visions . Erdoes published five more as-told-to collaborative narratives with American Indian co-authors: Lakota Woman (1990) and its sequel Ohitka Woman (1993), with Mary Brave Bird; The Gift of Power: The Life and Teachings of a Lakota Medicine Man (1992), with Archie Fire Lame Deer; Crow Dog: Four Generations of Sioux Medicine Men (1995), with Leonard Crow Dog; and Ojibwa Warrior: Dennis Banks and the Rise of the American Indian Movement (2004), with Dennis Banks. Other significant book projects included American Indian Myths and Legends (1984) and American Indian Trickster Tales (1998), both co-edited with Alfonso Ortiz.

Richard Erdoes died on July 16, 2008 in Santa Fe, New Mexico.