Each unframed image: 5.5"x5.5". Archie Blackowl (1911-1992) was born in Weatherford, Oklahoma. He was placed into an Indian boarding school by the U.S. government in 1918. Blackowl described his experience in the school as follows: "When I was seven years old they took me to this damn Indian school and we had to stand in line and they cut my hair off. They just cut my braids off and threw them into a box with all the other children's braids. It was hard being an Indian in them days." Blackowl attended the Haskell Indian School and the University of Kansas. Blackowl was encouraged by Potawatomi artist Woody Crumbo to study art and was able to attend the University of Oklahoma on a grant from the Phillips 66 Foundation. Blackowl worked as an artist, a teacher, an industrial painter in the aircraft industry, a government muralist, and as an employee of Walt Disney Studios. Blackowl's art accurately portrayed the traditional Southern Plains traditions and culture. He worked mostly in tempera or mixed media and followed the Flat style of the Dorothy Dunn school of painting. Blackowl's work was included in traveling exhibitions and his work won many awards. His paintings are included in numerous public and private collections, including the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the American Indian, the Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and the U.S. Department of the Interior's Indian Arts & Crafts Board.