Description

Kiowa Indian Art. Watercolor Paintings in Color by the Indians of Oklahoma. Nice (France): Originally published by C. Szwedzicki, 1929. Republished by Bell Editions, Santa Fe, 1979. HOKEAH, JACK (ca. 1902–1969). A member of the illustrious group of Kiowa artists who became nationally and internationally famous while studying painting at the University of Oklahoma in the late 1920s, Jack Hokeah was born in western Oklahoma circa 1902. Orphaned in infancy, he was raised by his grandmother. One of his grandfathers was White Horse. Hokeah attended St. Patrick's Mission School near Anadarko. Kiowa Field Matron Susie Peters encouraged several young Kiowas in their art endeavors, and Hokeah joined them to attend the University of Oklahoma and study painting under the tutelage of professors Edith Mahier and Oscar B. Jacobson. By November 1927 his art had received national recognition and in 1928, he and four other artists (known as the Kiowa Five) were featured in an international exhibition in Prague, Czechoslovakia. Hokeah's subjects were informed by his southern plains heritage and include dancing and other ceremonial occasions. His murals are found in Santa Fe at the U.S. Indian School and at the St. Patrick Isidore Ricklin Memorial Chapel, now located at the Southern Plains Indian Museum in Anadarko, Oklahoma. A now-famous portfolio of silk-screened prints was published in France in 1929. Then, in 1979, Bell Editions, Inc. of Santa Fe NM, published a facsimile edition of the 1932 edition. These prints are rare reproductions of the original paintings. Hokeah's work is represented in galleries and collections throughout the United States, among them the Gilcrease Museum, the Philbrook Museum of Art, the Museum of the American Indian in New York and murals in the federal building for the U.S. Department of the Interior in Washington, D.C. The size of this limited edition print is 11" x 15" on stiff heavy paper and is printed by six-color offset lithography.