Oscar Howe

Oscar Howe (on Dakota: " Mazuha Hokshina ", " Trader Boy" ) was an indigenous American artist ( born 1915 in Joe Creek to Crow Creek Reservation, South Dakota; † 1983), who was known for his casein painting. He was one of the first modern painter of the North American Indians.

Life

Howe was Yanktonai Dakota and descendant of chiefs. Howe first visited the Pierre Indian School in South Dakota, in 1933, he began to study art. As a veteran, he returned from the Second World War.

From 1933 to 1938 he studied at the New Mexico Indian School in Santa Fe at Dorothy Dunn. He earned a master's degree in art from the University of Oklahoma. The first works were influenced by ledger type. However, he began to develop his distinctive, unique style.

1941 made ​​him the Works Progress Administration in South Dakota to create a series of wall paintings ( murals ) for the community hall in Mobridge, SD, and a mural in the dome of the Carnegie Library in Mitchell, SD In the years 1948-1971 he designed panels for the so-called [ Corn Palace ] in Mitchell, a tourist attraction that consists of a building whose facade is completely covered with different colored, dried corn on the cob, which form mosaics. From 1957 to 1983 he was Professor of Art at the University of South Dakota ( Vermillion, SD)

Howes unconventional style builds on traditional elements and same time accommodating idiosyncratic, almost expressionist interpretations. The resulting synthesis represents a turning point in the history of the Lakota art dar. Howe hereby opened the Lakota art completely new perspectives, through the re-interpretation of old motifs (such as geometric shapes or pictograms ).

Significantly this about his painting " The medicine man " is ( " Dakota Medicine Man ", 1968, casein on paper, South Dakota Art Museum ), which is in a modern way, the energetic atmosphere at a Summoning Ritual - the [ energy ] is a web lightning- lines visible. Such " flash lines " belong to a traditional motifs on ( for example in depictions of mythological thunderbird ), on the other hand they appear at Howe in a physically -real acting and yet mythical and abstracted manner, in a tension between representation and symbolism.

Howe was rejected in 1958 for an exhibition of Native American art on the grounds that his works would not meet the criteria of a " traditional Indian style ". Howe did not preserve the status quo in a museum " Sioux " painting. A rethinking of the public began, and Howe was honored as Artist Laureate of South Dakota.

Exhibitions

Howes works were on their own exhibit space in the Oscar Howe Art Gallery at the Dakota Discovery Museum in Mitchell and in the Oscar Howe Gallery at the University of South Dakota in Vermillion, SD issued. From April 17 2007 to February 17, 2008 Works by Oscar Howe at the South Dakota Art Museum in Brookings, South Dakota were shown. Most of these works are created in casein painting, but other techniques such as graphite on paper and sculptures of stone and bronze are available.

Artistic effect

Howe - inspired art students from the vicinity of the " Howe School " emerged more artists who developed their own style, including Arthur Amiotte. Thus Howe gave the impulse to a new dynamic of indigenous art scene.

The NAASA ( = Native American Studies Association ) sets the Oscar Howe Prize from, a price which was made possible by the Oscar Howe Memorial Association of the University of South Dakota, and is preferably intended for students who NAASA on a conference paper on "Northern Plains Indian art " present.

In a chapel in Chamberlain, South Dakota, is a Crucifixion painted motif of Howe. An elementary school in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, was named after Oscar Howe.