Fireside

Fireside at the San Diego Museum of Art shows a Native American figure in an interior domestic setting, gathered around the hearth that was the centre of domestic life in traditional communities. Unlike Sharp's outdoor portraits, this interior scene placed his subject within the material culture of domestic existence, surrounded by the objects and activities associated with home and family. The San Diego Museum of Art has long collected American Western art, and Sharp's work fits within a regional collecting tradition that reflects California's proximity to the cultures he documented. The fireside's warm illumination gave Sharp's palette a different quality from his outdoor portrait light.

Firelight created a warm, low-key illumination that concentrated attention on the illuminated figure while allowing the surrounding interior to recede into shadow. Sharp uses this natural vignetting to focus the composition, with warm reds and oranges of firelight modelling the figure from below and to one side.