Oscar Howe Mural

Did you know there is an Oscar Howe designed mural in Vermillion, South Dakota?

See the web site for St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Vermillion (and then the Church Life tab) or the Oscar Howe papers at the Archives and Special Collections for more information.

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Translation of the Sioux Indian Language into English: figures, money, definitions, words, sentences, &c.

The Archives and Special Collections has this book in the Oscar Howe Papers: O. H. Bonnell, Translation of the Sioux Indian Language into English: figures, money, definitions, words, sentences, &c. Chamberlain, Dakota Territory: Democrat Print. 1880. 8 pages. 19 cm. [Update: Translation of the Sioux Indian language into English; Figures, money definitions, words, sentences, etc. has now been added to the Digital Library of South Dakota.

Translation of the Sioux Indian language into English; Figures, money definitions, words, sentences, etc.

 

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Oscar Howe and Vincent Price

Oscar Howe in Studio, 1960’s

Today while working with the Oscar Howe Papers, I found the following short statement by Oscar Howe about Vincent Price, “…for forteen (sic) years, Vincent was commissioner of the Indian Arts and Crafts Board of the Department of the Interior. Just last year, he requested that he be replaced by a Native American, an Indian. As commissioner, he made it his responsibility to awaken the American and world public to the beauty of Indian art, and to foster its sale. And, in a very personal way, I must thank you again, Vincent, for engineering my own appearance on my ‘This is Your Life’ years ago.”

Source: This is Your Life script, with autographs, This Your Life 1960 folder, Box 46, Oscar Howe papers (MS 072), Archives and Special Collections, University of South Dakota.

 

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Oscar Howe Collection

Oscar Howe with students at the University of South Dakota

The Oscar Howe Collection-Photographs Finding Aid

The Oscar Howe Collection, Photograph Collection has been processed and is available for research. The photographic materials are just one portion of this much larger collection that is still working its way through processing.

Artist Laureate of South Dakota Oscar Howe and
Governor Ralph Herseth, c. 1960

The photographic materials from the Oscar Howe Collection span the lived experiences and posthumous events of Oscar Howe’s life, depicting subjects such as Howe’s education, family, art works, military service, and employment at the University of South Dakota. For preventive conservation purposes, the photographic materials are organized by type and divided into seven series: Series 1: Black and White Photographs, Series 2: Color Photographs, Series 3: Photographs with Conservation Concerns, Series 4: Black and White Negatives, Series 5: Color Negatives, and Series 6: Slides. Generally, the subseries, categories and photographs within each series are arranged alphabetically. Titles of artworks, however, are listed first chronologically and then alphabetically within each year. Rough dates have been ascribed to photographic materials at the discretion of the series’ processor. The dates attached to photographic materials that depict artwork refer to the creation dates of the artwork, not the photographs that depict it. Instances in which a rough date for material could not be determined are marked “n.d.” It is also important to note that individuals are described by their entire names including maiden and nick names. Also, the series’ processor has included notes to aid in the disambiguation of certain events and subjects. These notes appear in italics.

Also included with the photographic materials is Series 7: Identification Photocopies. Series 7 contains photocopies of photographs from Series 1-3. Attached to each photocopy is a sheet that contains information concerning the identification number, subject, date, location, occasion, ownership/copyright, photographer, number of copies, location of the negative, and source of each photograph used as guides at the time of collection processing. It is important to note that these fields are not completely filled out for every photograph. The photocopies are arranged in the same order as the photographs they depict. Finally, also included in this series are photocopies of two albums originally owned and donated by the Howe family. The photocopies show the original location and placement of the photographs contained within each album. Photographs were removed during processing.

Series 1 is divided into 13 subseries: Awards/Special Recognition, Education, Family, Gravesite, Howe and Unidentified, Military, Miscellaneous, Museums/Gallery Spaces, Oscar Howe Retrospective Exhibition, Professional Employment, Unidentified, and Works.

Series 2 is divided into 11 subseries: Awards/Special Recognition, Family, Gravesite, Howe and Unidentified, Miscellaneous, Museums/Gallery Spaces, Oscar Howe Elementary School, Oscar Howe Memorial Lecture, Professional Employment, Unidentified, and Works.

Series 3 is divided into 9 subseries: Awards/Special Recognition, Copy Photographs/Proof Sheets, Education, Family, Miscellaneous, Museums/Gallery Spaces, Professional Employment, Unidentified, and Oversize. It is important to note that the majority of the Copy Photographs/Proof Sheets subseries are arranged by year because most of the copy photographs and proof sheets are composites of different subjects.

Series 4 is divided into 9 subseries: Awards/Special Recognition, Education, Family, Military, Miscellaneous, Oscar Howe Retrospective Exhibition, Professional Employment, Unidentified, and Works.

Series 5 is divided into 5 subseries: Family, Miscellaneous, Museums/Gallery Spaces, Professional Employment, and Works.

Series 6 is divided into 10 subseries: Awards/Special Recognition, Education, Family, Military, Miscellaneous, Museums/Gallery Spaces, Oscar Howe Retrospective Exhibition, Professional Employment, Unidentified, and Works. It is important to note that rather than being arranged alphabetically, the Oscar Howe Retrospective Slide Presentation is arranged in the original order of the presentation for preservation purposes.

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Oscar Howe, Cubism, and Traditional Native American Art

Oscar Howe works on piece, 1960

Nearing the completion of processing photographs from the Oscar Howe Collection, I came across the above photograph and became curious about how Howe’s interactions with Native American and European artistic traditions impacted his work. The angular planes, geometry, and abstraction that appear in Howe’s art have led many critics to claim European Modernism (specifically Cubism), was Howe’s prime artistic influence. For instance, Bea Medicine and J.J. Brody both described Howe as a “neo” or “post-Cubist.”  In agreement, John Anson Warner wrote, “Oscar Howe brought into his painting new forms hitherto unknown in North American Indian art…Howe dramatically changed his art after experiencing such Modernist paradigms as Cubist and Abstract-expressionism. During World War II, he spent three and one-half years in the Army; while in Europe, he was exposed to the Cubist art of Matisse, Picasso, and Braque” (Warner 13).

Throughout his career, Howe encountered similar readings of his work. In 1958, the jurors of the Philbrook Indian Art Annuals rejected Howe’s painting, Umine Wacipe: War and Peace Dance, from their annual competition on the basis that it did not conform to the Studio style, the widely agreed upon style of traditional Native American art that was popular during the early 20th Century. According to Bill Anthes, the Studio style, “emphasized flat, linear patterns, and unmodulated earth colors uncontaminated by Western pictorial techniques such as shading and perspective…Further, authentic Indian painting was to be illustrational and ethnographically correct: artists were only to represent members of their own tribes or regions…The organizers of the Philbrook annual believed that the standards that enforced these essential traits guaranteed the authenticity and value of Native American painting at a time when they feared that Indian cultures were disappearing” (Anthes 142). As Anthes notes, what troubled Howe and other Native American artists of his generation about the Studio style was not only that it was aesthetically restrictive, but also that it was developed  to please White patrons and failed to represent the modern lived experiences of Native American tribes and individuals. “Many artists began to see the flat, pastel illustrations of traditional life as an imposed aesthetic that merely catered to non-Native audience’s desire for untroubled images of traditional Indian cultures…The Studio style was seen as a simplistic stereotype that elided tribal differences, repressed individual expression, and was out of touch with contemporary Native lives, which by now encompassed military service, urban wage labor, mainstream education, and increasing activism” (Anthes 143). Howe’s response to the rejection became like a manifesto for Native American artists frustrated by the constraints of the Studio style:

Who ever said that my paintings are not in the traditional Indian style has poor knowledge of Indian art indeed. There is much more to Indian Art than pretty, stylized pictures. There was also power and strength and individualism (emotional and intellectual insight ) in the old Indian paintings. Every bit in my paintings is a true, studied fact of Indian paintings. Are we to be held back forever with one phase of Indian painting, with no right for individualism, dictated to as the Indian has always been, put on reservations and treated like a child, and only the White Man knows what is best for him?  Now, even in Art, ‘You little child do what we think is best for you, nothing different.” Well, I am not going to stand for it. Indian Art can compete with any Art in the world, but not as a suppressed Art….–Oscar Howe, Letter to Philbrook Indian Art Annuals Jurors as quoted by Jeanne Snodgrass King in “The Preeminence of Oscar Howe,” 17

Rejection on the basis that his art was somehow non-traditional or inauthentic must have been particularly painful for Howe; he considered his work wholly derivative of Native American (specifically Dakota) artistic traditions. For example, the jagged shapes and abstractions that critics often read as Cubist were actually “a continuation of geometrical point-and-line compositional device that he (Howe) referred to as tahokmu, or the ‘spiderweb,’ in which designs are generated by a web-like network of points…Howe explained that traditional designs were ‘diamond shaped with one deer hoof track design at each end, that is left and right horizontally symmetrical.  From this design comes all geometric designs…'” (Anthes 166).  Furthermore, Howe not only used this design in its original form, but also adjusted and visually manipulated it to convey greater emotional dynamism in his work.  Howe also contended that his artistic process was in step with the formal painting ceremony of the Sioux, during which a group of initiates witnessed a painter translate the words of a storyteller into visual symbols. For Howe, who explained that his process was also a response to Dakota language and storytelling, the main difference between his work and the traditional painting ceremony was that his symbols and abstractions were individualistic reactions to contemporary Native life. “Howe argued that Indian artists were accepted and integrated members of Native societies and understood as members of the community who shared the community’s values and whose art represented those values. Even if the artist developed a personal, individualistic, innovative art…it was still perceived as an expression of the artist’s individual culture.” (Anthes 165). It was in this way that Howe saw himself, not necessarily as a creator of a new style of art, but as an artist and innovator who contributed to the continuation and further evolution of traditional Native American art that would have occurred had it not been for stagnating effects of the Studio style.

The Dakota art of painting-its medium technique, process, subject matter, and its qualitative aspects-has given me direction, purpose, substance, and art, an art which is still in its original form, originality unblemished and unquestionably a true reflection of culture, not a bastardly exploitation. Being a Dakota with a background of Dakota culture I felt I should continue the art. To use the ways and means of Dakota art for continuity and still keep the essence of Indian art was paramount in my quest for expression.  In order to stabilize and validate this it must work with or from the traditions and conventions. Its components remain Dakota to the core regardless of individualization of art (Howe 76-77).

To learn more about Oscar Howe or to view some of his works, please visit the Oscar Howe Gallery at the University of South Dakota.

Oscar Howe composing a painting in his studio, 1960’s

–Information gathered from:   Anthes, Bill. Native Moderns: American Indian Painting, 1940-1960. Durham: Duke University Press, 2006. 142-166. Print; Brody, Jerome. Indian Painters & White Patrons.Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1971. 172. Print; Howe, Oscar. “Theories and Beliefs–Dakota.” South Dakota Review. 2.2 (1969): 76-77. Print; Medicine, Bea.“Oscar Howe and the Sioux.” Oscar Howe: A Retrospective Exhibition, Catalogue Raisonne. Ed. Dockstader, Fredrick J. Tulsa: Thomas Gilcrease Museum Association, 1982. 15-16. Print; Snodgrass-King, Jeanne. “The Preeminence of Oscar Howe.” Oscar Howe: A Retrospective Exhibition, Catalogue Raisonne. Ed. Dockstader, Fredrick J. Tulsa: Thomas Gilcrease Museum Association, 1982. 17-19.  Warner, John Anson. “The Sociological Art of Oscar Howe.” Oscar Howe: A Retrospective Exhibition, Catalogue Raisonne. Ed. Dockstader, Fredrick J. Tulsa: Thomas Gilcrease Museum Association, 1982.13-14

–Photographs: The Oscar Howe Collection, Richardson Collection, USD Archives and Special Collections

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