When you grow up in the Southwest, surrounded by Navajo and Pueblo artists, you tend to get a little laser-focused on them. Or I did. I used to work with some modern Plains artists, and they were incredible. Virginia Stroud, Jean Bales, Bill Rabbit, Charlie Pratt, and others were my first exposure to the art of the Plains, most of them from Oklahoma.
Some thirty years ago, on a trip to visit my sister-in-law in Tulsa, where her husband was in medical school, I took the afternoon to visit the Philbrook Museum. That was the day my eyes were opened to the pioneer Indian artists of the area and the similarity of the flat paint style that I knew.
The technique of two-dimensional painting, or “flat painting,” is generally attributed to the influence of Dorothy Dunn at the Santa Fe Indian School; there is another side to it. Oklahoma Indian artists were also exposed to the style and embraced it. Many came upon the style at the St. Patrick’s Mission School, where a Choctaw Nun, Sister Olivia Taylor, taught art classes. A government field matron, Susie Peters, realized what the students were doing and arranged for Mrs. Willie Baze Lane, a Chickasaw artist, to provide further art instruction for young Kiowa artists.
Peters also convinced Swedish-American artist Oscar Jacobson, the director of the University of Oklahoma’s School of Art, to accept the students in a special program at the school. Five artists were later joined by a sixth, becoming known as the Kiowa Six. Their first major showing was in Prague, Czechoslovakia, and following that, a portfolio of the group’s work was published in France.
Other Plains Indian artists attended Haskell College in Lawrence, Kansas, and Bacone College in Muskogee. And many of the artists featured in this collection are self-taught. That may not be completely true, as they were often taught by the Elders and other artists who were family or friends. But regardless, “Flat Painting” was the primary style for early Plains Indian artists.
This collection of paintings was assembled over time by an East Coast art collector who lived in Santa Fe part-time for more than 20 years. Of course, he collected Southwest Native arts such as jewelry, pottery, and weavings, and four of the paintings in this collection are from Pueblo and Navajo artists.
After moving the collection back to the East Coast, the gentleman’s daughter came up with the idea for a unique restaurant in New York City and wanted to decorate it with these paintings. That is why they are so beautifully framed. The restaurant never happened, and the family decided to sell the collection. We were lucky enough to be chosen to represent it.
The collection includes: Kyrat Tuvahoema (Hopi), Joyce Lee “Doc” Nevaquay (Cherokee) Lee Tsa Toke, Jr.(Kiowa), Robert Taylor (Blackfoot, Cherokee, Osage), Spenser Asah (Kiowa), T. Benally (Navajo), Lois Smokey (Kiowa), Archie Blackowl (Cheyenne), Tiller Wesley (Creek), Stephen Mopope (Kiowa), Pablita Velarde (Santa Clara), Paul “Chief Flying Eagle” Goodyear (Cheyenne), George Smith Watchetaker (Comanche) Acee Blue Eagle (Muskogee Creek), Monroe Tsatoke (Kiowa), Billy Tone-pah-hote (Kiowa) and Richard Caje.
These are all excellent examples of Native ”Flat Art” painting, beautifully framed, by some of the best Indian artists of the first half of the 1900s. We are thankful for the opportunity to share them with you!
