Description:
Watercolor on paper. Signed l.r.: Houser 35, Stamped u.r.: PLANCHE 69.
Excerpt from American Indian Painters, Vol. 2, p. 11: I knew the old Apache warrior well in the early years of 1900. He was a fierce-looking old cuss. Once he gave me a photograph, signed. He could sign his name. He was at that time prisoner-of-war at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. He had the most famous name in frontier history, having terrorized the Southwest for six years. The Geronimo campaign of 1885-86 is part of American history. In this military adventure, five thousand United States Army troops, five hundred Indian auxiliaries and scouts, and an unknown number of civilians finally forced Geronimo's band of less than three hundred fifty men and boys to surrender after six years of guerrilla warfare. But I fear this tends to become a story of Geronimo, the Apache warrior, instead of his great-grandson, Allan Houser, the artist. Allan, who was born in Oklahoma, began his art career in Santa Fe. He received the arts and crafts award for the best work by an artist in the Indian School in 1936. Allan had a splendid physique and at first considered athletics as a career. To pass the time and keep from boredom during an illness while in high school he became interested in art. He made such rapid progress that he was one of six Indian artists invited to decorate the new Department of the Interior Building in Washington. This encouraged him to open a studio in Santa Fe with his friend, Gerald Nailor, as a partner. Allan Houser's work has received a great deal of attention in American art circles. He has had several one-man shows at Chicago Art Institute, University of Oklahoma, and elsewhere. As a result he is widely known even abroad. His painting "Leaving For War" was in the New York World's Fair. He had several at the San Francisco Exposition in 1938 and he has illustrated the book, "I Am a Pueblo Girl" by E-yeh-shure, the Pueblo Indian poet. Houser was recently invited by the governor of Arizona to do a portrait of old Geronimo for the state capital at Phoenix. Geronimo in the state capitol ! Times marches on. Allan knows many stories about his people that have never been told, stories learned by listening to his father, grandfather, and other old Apaches who came to Oklahoma as prisoners with their chief. These tribal tales and legends are usually the subjects for his paintings. No other Indian that we know of has painted so many anecdotes. Houser can draw like a master. He knows how to combine colors. He understands the ugly Indian pinto, and he also knows his people and their tragic history. Sometimes in his art he displays a certain satirical arrogance in keeping with his Apache background. His Indians are not handsome. He is ranked as one of the most important Indian artists of his day. (Collection, Oscar Brousse Jacobson) Text references: American Indian Painters, Vol. 2, pp. 4, 11.