Description:
Tempera on paper. Signed l.c.: Archie Blackowl, Inscribed l.r.: O.B. Jacobsen, Stamped u.r.: PLANCHE 13.
From: American Indian Painters, Vol. 1, p. 14: During the last fifteen or twenty years, many Indian artists have come to my office or home for advice and encouragement, some probably for the chance of selling one of their paintings. So I was not particularly astonished when a few years ago, a handsome young warrior suddenly appeared with a bundle of paintings. He introduced himself as Blackowl, and would he be permitted to show me his work? We went over his things carefully and bought one or two. His work showed promise, but was not especially exciting. Many Oklahoma Indians were at that time producing work more interesting; yet there was a quality in evidence that proclaimed that Blackowl would be heard from if the artist had the courage and stamina to carry on. Archie Blackowl has carried on in spite of ill health, discouragement, and domestic cares. Blackowl was born in 1911 and spent his childhood on an average Indian farm. His formal education was interrupted very early. He married a charming Comanche girl and has three sons and a daughter for whom to provide. It is economically not so easy to raise a family and be an artist, red or white. It was not until 1938 that he began to paint, at first for pastime only, and it was not long before his name began to appear in the catalogues of exhibitions in Oklahoma, San Francisco, New York, Washington D.C., and elsewhere. The Department of Indian Affairs arranged an exhibition of Blackowl's works and also bought a number of his paintings for Indian schools. He has several murals in public buildings to his credit. The best known are at the Indian School and at the Kiowa Hospital in Lawton, the officers' club at Fort sill, Philbrook Museum in Tulsa, etc. He won first prize, in 1947, for Plains tribes art in the All-Indian competitive exhibition in Tulsa. Many of his watercolors have found a permanent home in private collections. Blackowl's work has a genuine Indian flavor, and is founded on first-hand knowledge of the lore and customs of his tribe, the haughty Cheyennes. He is still a member of the Sun Dance Clan, and keeps up his religious and social contacts with the old order. His "Prayer for the Mother" gives one an idea of the delicacy, refinement, and tenderness of an Indian artist at his best when handling this most sacred of subjects, the funeral of a mother. In harmony of color and line, it can be compared with the work of Early Italian Masters. (Collection Oscar Brousse Jacobson)