HOUSER, ALLAN. (1914-1994). Chiricahua Apache painter, sculptor and book illustrator. ALS. (“Allan Houser”). 3½pp. On four separate sheets. Tall 4to. N.p. (Brigham City, Utah), N.d. (1959). To French journalist Léo Sauvage (1913-1988). In pencil, and written in capital letters. Accompanied by original carbon copies of three related typed letters from Sauvage to Houser (1959).

“In regards to your letter of March 17, I am sending a brief biography of myself. I am an Apache of the Geronimo group that were taken as prisoners of war by the U.S. government, and removed from our native home of New Mexico and Arizona and placed on a military reservation at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. I was born and reared in Okla. but I have spent many years in New Mexico. My father was in the war with Geronimo and later became an interpreter for Geronimo. With this rich experience he has been my most important critic. I feel when I interpret this information I do it with authority. I have always had a great love for my Indian heritage.

My experience and achievements[:] I received my first art training under Dorthy [Dorothy] Dunn of the once active Santa Fe Indian Art School; later I studied under Olle Nordmark of New York where I learned to paint frescos and seccos and egg tempra [tempera]. I have also studied under Everett C. Thorpe in Utah. My sculpturing I tought [sic] myself through my own efforts. I carved a marble statue at the Haskell Institute in Lawrence, Kansas, 7½ feet tall. I have done two separate mural jobs in Washington D.C.; I won a John Simon Guggenheim scholor ship [sic]. I won three Grand Purchase Prize awards at the Philbrook Art Museum; I made four dioramas and one mural for the Southern Plains Indian Museum in Anadarko Oklahoma.

Fresco murals
Fort Sill Indian Sch. Okla.
Secco Murals
Riverside Indian Sch. Okla.
Secco Murals
Jiarrilla Indian Sch. New Mexico
Secco & Oil Murals
Here at Intermountain Sch.

I designed a medal in relief for the Society of Medalists of New York.
I won First Place in the Professional Class in Sculpturing at the Utah State Fair.
I am making plans for a relief carving in sandstone in a new church here in Brigham City.
I am preparing for a one-man show at the Denver Art museum for the month of August.
I have illustrated seven books and have done some work for Comptons Pictured Encyclopedia.
I am also to be mentioned in the Life Magizine [sic]. Will be mentioned in Who’s Who in West.

I was given an award by the French government for outstanding work in sculpturing and painting, the ‘Palmes Académiques.’ The price of Happy Hunting Ground is $250.00. Hoping information and price of painting is satisfactory...”

Allan Houser (Haozous), born on the family farm in Oklahoma to Sam and Blossom Haozous, grew up to become one of the best-known Native American painters and Modernist sculptors of the 20th century.

Houser’s formal art training began at the Santa Fe Indian School in New Mexico, where he studied drawing, sculpting, and painting murals. His work can now be found at the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, the National Museum of the American Indian, the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., the Oklahoma State Capitol Building, and in numerous major museum collections throughout North America, Europe, and Japan. Additionally, Houser’s Offering of the Sacred Pipe (1979) is on display at the United States Mission to the United Nations in New York City.

Houser mentions the strong influence of his father, Sam Haozous (1868-1957), an Apache leader and Geronimo’s grandnephew who fought alongside the chief during the Apache wars; he later served as Geronimo’s interpreter.

In 1947 the Haskell Institute commissioned Houser to create a memorial to American Indian soldiers killed in WWII, which included many Haskell students. The finished piece, carved from a single block of Carrara marble, was Houser’s first major work in stone. He titled it Comrade in Mourning (1948), and it has become an iconic American sculpture.

Houser names his three early teachers Dorothy Dunn (1903-1992), Olle Nordmark (1890-1973) and Everett C. Thorpe (1907-1983), while listing specific murals, frescoes and seccos he painted, as well as awards he has received. Houser was 44 years old at the time, responding to Sauvage’s request for biographical information, in view of a planned exhibition of American Indian paintings in Paris. From 1951 to 1962 Houser was a teacher and artist in residence at the Inter-Mountain Indian School in Brigham City, Utah, whence he wrote our letter.

In 1962 Houser moved back to Santa Fe as a founding faculty member of the Institute of American Indian Arts, and director of its sculpture department, until he retired to concentrate on his own work. He was inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame in 1985, and in 1992 became the first American Indian to receive the National Medal of Arts, presented to him by President George H. W. Bush.

Léo Sauvage had a life-long interest in Native Americans and wrote many articles on indigenous artists. He was the NY foreign correspondent for the Paris daily newspaper Le Figaro, and reported for 25 years under the byline “New York: Léo Sauvage” on U.S. news, political and cultural events, reviewing plays and interviewing celebrities in all fields. Additionally, he authored nine books, the best-known of which are The Oswald Affair (1966), about the JFK assassination, and L’Affaire Lumière (1985), about Georges Méliès and the origins of cinema.

Paper browned, and the letter’s edges are slightly worn with several small tears or chips affecting parts of two words. Rare; the only letter by this prominent American artist we have ever seen for sale.