Oscar Howe
(1915-1983, Yanktonai Dakota)
"Sioux Council"
Casein on paper
Signed lower right: Oscar Howe; signed again, titled, and inscribed "$40.00," all in ink, verso
Sight: 18 1/2 x 24 1/2 in.; Sheet: 19 3/4 x 25 3/4 in.

Provenance:
Private collection, South Dakota, acquired directly from the artist, circa 1960s
By family descent

Other Notes:
In 1958, the Yanktonai Dakota artist Oscar Howe submitted his painting "Umine Wacipi" ("War and Peace Dance") to the Annual Indian Art competition at the Philbrook Art Center. Bold, abstract, and highly experimental, the work departed drastically from the stylistic conventions that had come to define "traditional Indian" painting within the exhibition. Rather than adhering to the flat colors and illustrative compositions associated with the "Studio Style," in which he trained during his early years at the Santa Fe Indian School, Howe employed fractured forms and dynamic movement to create a strikingly modern visual language rooted in Dakota cultural expression. The jurors rejected the painting, claiming it did not conform to their guidelines. In response, Howe wrote a letter to the museum's curator of Native American art, Jeanne Snodgrass, defending both his artistic vision and the broader creative autonomy of Indigenous artists. As Howe asserted, "There is much more to Indian Art than pretty, stylized pictures… Are we to be held back forever with one phase of Indian painting, with no right for individualism, dictated to as the Indian always has been, put on reservations, and treated like a child, and only the White Man knows what is best for him? Now, even in Art" (Dockstader et al., 1982, p. 19). His words not only articulated a powerful challenge to the restrictive expectations placed upon Native artists, but also addressed the political and governmental treatment of Native people more broadly, marking a pivotal moment in the emergence of a modern, self-determined vision of Indigenous art.

Born on May 13, 1915, on a reservation in South Dakota, Oscar Howe showed an early affinity for art. Often discouraged by his parents, he nonetheless grew closer to art, especially after a severe skin condition forced him indoors for extended periods. Howe later attended the Pierre Indian School, operated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, where he endured harsh treatment, and his health challenges only intensified. Returning to the reservation to recover physically and mentally, he spent many hours with his grandmother, Shell Face, who taught him tribal symbols, designs, cultural traditions, and stories of their ancestors. These lessons became deeply ingrained in Howe, providing a wellspring of inspiration that he would draw upon throughout his life, and which profoundly shaped his artistic sensibility.

Howe later received formal training at the Santa Fe Indian School under Dorothy Dunn, gaining technical foundations while encountering the rigid "Studio Style," characterized by flat, stylized depictions of ceremonial and historical subjects. Yet this style proved too limiting for his imaginative ambition. Even as a student, Howe absorbed modernist currents circulating in the broader American art world, integrating principles of abstraction and expressive linework with motifs drawn from Dakota culture. This synthesis of tradition and innovation would define his artistic trajectory and set him apart from his contemporaries. He found himself at the intersection of two worlds: the presentation of traditional cultural forms and inspiration from modernist and Romanticist currents, reflecting the social and political transformations of the era.

Howe created casein paintings from 1955 to 1978, and "Sioux Council," circa 1960s, exemplifies the artist's mature visual language, characterized by angular, faceted forms, complex color relationships, and a sophisticated synthesis of abstraction and representation. Drawing upon Dakota cultural traditions while embracing modernist abstraction, "Sioux Council" demonstrates Howe's ability to transform Indigenous subjects into a highly personal and innovative artistic language.

Throughout his career, Howe's contributions were widely recognized. He taught at the University of South Dakota, shaping generations of artists, while relentlessly championing the modernist innovation that would come to define his legacy. Today, Oscar Howe's work resonates as a powerful testament to artistic independence and cultural pride. His paintings do more than depict figures or events; they evoke the enduring vitality of Dakota traditions while affirming the place of Indigenous voices within modern art. Through his work, Howe's voice remains vibrant, asserting the enduring significance of Native American art and the transformative power of creativity untethered by convention.

The colors rich. There is a broad, soft, horizontal ripple through the uppermost edge of the image, not affecting the figures, and a few other, smaller, areas of soft cockling elsewhere in the image, all of which is primarily visible in raking light. There is a fairly unobtrusive, narrow, linear, 1 1/4 x 1 inch, T-shaped, surface scuff in the upper portion of one of the brown background sections (second from the right), plus several other even smaller, fainter, surface scuffs elsewhere in the background of the upper portion of the work, all visible primarily in raking light. Scattered minor, nearly invisible, pinhead-sized (or smaller), specks of slight staining in places in the background of the upper third, possibly attendant with the soft cockling just described. A pinhead-sized pigment loss at the center of the extreme lower edge of the image (not visible as matted). Old brown paper tape along the verso of the sheet edges, likely in the hand of the artist. The sheet is hinged to the overmat with small squares of linen and/or filmoplast tape in two places from the upper edge of the brown paper-taped edges (just mentioned), verso, and is additionally secured to the overmat with archival paper corners at the tips of the lower sheet corners.

Framed under glass: 31 x 36 x 2 in.
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