Allan Houser
Encyclopedia
Allan Capron Houser or Haozous (June 30, 1914—August 22, 1994) a Chiricahua Apache sculptor from Oklahoma
. He was one of the most renowned Native American
painters and Modernist sculptors of the 20th century.
Houser's work can be found at the United Nations building
in New York City
, at the National Portrait Gallery
in Washington, DC. and in other public buildings throughout the U.S. capital.
and Fort Sill
, Native American artist Allan Houser was the first member of his family from the Warm Springs Chiricahua Apache tribe born outside of captivity since Geronimo’s 1886 surrender and the tribe's imprisonment by the U.S. government. The tribe had been led in battle by the legendary spiritual leader Geronimo
, who would later rely on his grandnephew Sam Haozous, Allan’s father, to serve as his translator.
In 1934, Houser left Oklahoma at the age of 20 to study at Dorothy Dunn
's Art Studio at the Santa Fe Indian School
in Santa Fe, New Mexico
. Dunn's method encouraged working from personal memory, avoiding techniques of perspective or modeling, and stylization of Native iconography. For the latter, Houser made hundreds of drawings and canvasses in Santa Fe and was one of Dunn's top students, but he found the program too constricting.
and the Golden Gate International Exposition
. He received his first major public commission to paint murals at the Main Interior Building
in Washington, DC. He also married Anna Maria Gallegos of Santa Fe, his wife for 55 years.
In 1940, he received another commission with the US. Department of Interior to paint life-sized indoor murals, then returned to Fort Sill to study with Norwegian muralist Olle Nordmark, who encouraged Houser to explore sculpture. He made his first wood carvings that year.
But World War II
interrupted Houser’s life and career path, and he moved his growing family to Los Angeles where he found work in the L.A. shipyards. Houser worked by day and continued to paint and sculpt by night, making friends among students and faculty at the Pasadena Art Center
. Here, he was first exposed to the streamlined modernist sculptural statements of artists like Jean Arp
, Constantin Brâncuşi
, and the English sculptor Henry Moore
. These three men – along with the English sculptress Barbara Hepworth
, who was among the first sculptors to place sculptural voids within the solid planes of her works – would come to have a huge influence on Houser.
After World War II, Houser applied for a commission at the Haskell Institute
in Lawrence, Kansas
. Haskell, a Native American boarding school, lost many graduates to the war and wanted a sculptural memorial to honor them. Though Houser had been carving in wood since 1940, he had never before sculpted in stone. He convinced the jury with his drawings and his conviction, and completed the monumental work Comrades in Mourning from white Carrara
marble in 1948. It has become an iconic work, both for the artist and for Native American art in general.
in sculpture and painting, which granted him two years to work on art and still provide for his family. By then, Houser had three sons and as the Fellowship came to an end, he accepted a job as an art teacher at the Intermountain Indian School
in Brigham City, Utah
.
Primarily a Navajo
boarding school, the Intermountain Indian School was where Houser began to build the teaching part of his legacy, with generations of students working directly with the man to learn the skills, techniques, patience, and tenacity that he brought to his life and work.
The Intermountain years gave Houser a time to teach, raise a family, and focus on his painting. He completed hundreds of paintings there, experimenting with watercolors, oils, and other media. While at Intermountain, he also worked as a children’s book illustrator, providing drawings and paintings for seven titles – including an illustrated biography on the life of his granduncle Geronimo.
In 1962, Houser was asked to join the faculty of a new Native American art school, the Institute of American Indian Arts
. He returned to Santa Fe
with his family to head up the Institute’s sculpture department. Casting his first bronzes in 1967, Houser was student and teacher as well, bringing forth his own history and ideas for a student body culled from every corner of Native America. He began working with the iconographies of other tribes, using modernist sculptural influences to forge the tribal and the abstract into a visual lexicon all his own.
During the early 1970s, Houser continued to teach at the Institute and began the rigorous production and exhibition cycle for which he became well known. As head of the sculpture department, he felt compelled to work in as many sculptural media as possible, evidenced by his solo exhibition of stone, bronze, and welded steel sculptures at the Heard Museum
in Phoenix, Arizona
in 1970. The following year, Houser exhibited paintings and sculpture at the Philbrook Museum of Art
in Tulsa, and in 1973 was awarded the Gold Medal in Sculpture at the Heard Museum Exhibition.
Exhibitions, awards, and accolades continued. In 1975, he was asked to paint the official portrait of former U.S. Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall
. That same year, he had a solo exhibition at the Governor’s Gallery at the State Capitol in Santa Fe. After thirteen years at IAIA, Houser retired from fulltime teaching to devote himself to sculpture.
Houser also continued to produce remarkable figurative pieces as well, including the life-sized bronze work Chiricuhua Apache Family, dedicated in 1983 at the Fort Sill Apache Tribal Center in Apache, OK. The piece honored both the memory of his parents, Sam and Blossom, and commemorates the 70th anniversary of the release of his tribe’s prisoners-of-war from Fort Sill.
In 1985, Houser’s monumental bronze, Offering of the Sacred Pipe, was dedicated at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations
in New York City A year later, he made a bronze bust of Geronimo to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of the surrender of the Chiricuhua Apaches. A cast of the bust was later presented to the National Portrait Gallery, where it remains in the permanent collection.
In his last five years, Houser produced a remarkable number of pieces, and received many awards for his life’s work. In 1989 he dedicated As Long as the Waters Flow, a monumental bronze commissioned for the Oklahoma
State Capitol building in Oklahoma City
. In 1991, he presented a casting of a bronze Sacred Rain Arrow to the Smithsonian Institution
. In the dedication
before the US Senate Select Committee on Indian Affairs, he dedicated the work to the American Indian. And in 1992, he became the first Native American to receive the National Medal of Arts
, awarded at a ceremony at the White House
by President George H. W. Bush
.
In 1993, Houser was honored by the dedication of the Allan Houser Art Park at the Institute of American Indian Arts
, and in 1994, he returned to Washington, DC. for the last time to present the United States government
with the sculpture, May We Have Peace, a gift, he said, “To the people of the United States from the First Peoples.” The gift was accepted by First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton
for installation at the Vice President’s residence.
He was fortunate to have been the kind of artist who did not need to be “discovered” after his death, for he enjoyed a career in which he was able to create not just for his own satisfaction, but for an appreciative public as well.
Upon his death, the honors kept coming. Among these was the installation of 19 monumental works of art in Salt Lake City during the 2002 Olympics, and a retrospective of 69 works at the National Museum of the American Indian
in Washington, DC. in 2004—2005. The exhibition marked the first major show for the new museum, and over three million people viewed it while it was on display.
And as a teacher for most of his working life, Allan Houser also enjoys the legacy of having passed on his direction, patience and skills to generations of Native American artists, including many from the IAIA years who are, in turn, passing on their skills to other generations.
After Houser's death in 1994, his legacy has been carried on by family members, including his two sons who have achieved success as sculptors, Philip Haozous and Bob Haozous
, and his grandson, Sam Atakra Haozous, an experimental photographer. The non-profit Allan Houser Foundation is devoted to the proliferation of the Houser name. The family also maintains a commercial gallery of Allan Houser's work in downtown Santa Fe and the Allan Houser Compound, a foundry and sculpture garden located south of Santa Fe.
in Hamilton, New Jersey (Opening October 2008); a dual show of his major works in opened at the Heard Museum and the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix Arizona in November 2009. In 2008 the Oklahoma History Center
held a major exhibition, "Unconquered: Allan Houser and the Legacy of one Apache Family," that looks at three generations of the Haozous/Houser family.
Major collections of Allan Houser's work can also be found in museums around the United States and the world.
Oklahoma
Oklahoma is a state located in the South Central region of the United States of America. With an estimated 3,751,351 residents as of the 2010 census and a land area of 68,667 square miles , Oklahoma is the 28th most populous and 20th-largest state...
. He was one of the most renowned Native American
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
painters and Modernist sculptors of the 20th century.
Houser's work can be found at the United Nations building
United Nations headquarters
The headquarters of the United Nations is a complex in New York City. The complex has served as the official headquarters of the United Nations since its completion in 1952. It is located in the Turtle Bay neighborhood of Manhattan, on spacious grounds overlooking the East River...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, at the National Portrait Gallery
National Portrait Gallery (United States)
The National Portrait Gallery is an art gallery in Washington, D.C., administered by the Smithsonian Institution. Its collections focus on images of famous individual Americans.-Building:...
in Washington, DC. and in other public buildings throughout the U.S. capital.
Childhood and school days
Born in 1914 to Sam and Blossom Haozous on the family farm near Apache, OklahomaApache, Oklahoma
Apache is a town in Caddo County, Oklahoma, USA. The population was 1,616 at the 2000 census.- Geography :Apache is located at ....
and Fort Sill
Fort Sill
Fort Sill is a United States Army post near Lawton, Oklahoma, about 85 miles southwest of Oklahoma City.Today, Fort Sill remains the only active Army installation of all the forts on the South Plains built during the Indian Wars...
, Native American artist Allan Houser was the first member of his family from the Warm Springs Chiricahua Apache tribe born outside of captivity since Geronimo’s 1886 surrender and the tribe's imprisonment by the U.S. government. The tribe had been led in battle by the legendary spiritual leader Geronimo
Geronimo
Geronimo was a prominent Native American leader of the Chiricahua Apache who fought against Mexico and the United States for their expansion into Apache tribal lands for several decades during the Apache Wars. Allegedly, "Geronimo" was the name given to him during a Mexican incident...
, who would later rely on his grandnephew Sam Haozous, Allan’s father, to serve as his translator.
In 1934, Houser left Oklahoma at the age of 20 to study at Dorothy Dunn
Dorothy Dunn
Dorothy Dunn Kramer was an American art instructor who created The Studio School at the Santa Fe Indian School.-Background:Dunn was born on 2 December 1903 in Pottawatomie County, Kansas and educated in Chicago. She first encountered Native American art at the Field Museum in Chicago in 1925...
's Art Studio at the Santa Fe Indian School
Santa Fe Indian School
The Santa Fe Indian School is a secondary school in Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States. It was founded in 1890 as a boarding school for Native American children from the state's Indian pueblos. But in the course of its history, the school has also served as a major cultural catalyst for the...
in Santa Fe, New Mexico
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Santa Fe is the capital of the U.S. state of New Mexico. It is the fourth-largest city in the state and is the seat of . Santa Fe had a population of 67,947 in the 2010 census...
. Dunn's method encouraged working from personal memory, avoiding techniques of perspective or modeling, and stylization of Native iconography. For the latter, Houser made hundreds of drawings and canvasses in Santa Fe and was one of Dunn's top students, but he found the program too constricting.
Early career
In 1939, Houser began his professional career by showing work at the 1939 New York World's FairNew York World's Fair
New York World's Fair may refer to:* 1939 New York World's Fair* 1964 New York World's Fair...
and the Golden Gate International Exposition
Golden Gate International Exposition
The Golden Gate International Exposition , held at San Francisco, California's Treasure Island, was a World's Fair that celebrated, among other things, the city's two newly-built bridges. The San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge was dedicated in 1936 and the Golden Gate Bridge was dedicated in 1937...
. He received his first major public commission to paint murals at the Main Interior Building
Main Interior Building
The Main Interior Building, also known as the Stewart Lee Udall Department of the Interior Building, located in Washington, D.C., is the headquarters of the United States Department of the Interior....
in Washington, DC. He also married Anna Maria Gallegos of Santa Fe, his wife for 55 years.
In 1940, he received another commission with the US. Department of Interior to paint life-sized indoor murals, then returned to Fort Sill to study with Norwegian muralist Olle Nordmark, who encouraged Houser to explore sculpture. He made his first wood carvings that year.
But World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
interrupted Houser’s life and career path, and he moved his growing family to Los Angeles where he found work in the L.A. shipyards. Houser worked by day and continued to paint and sculpt by night, making friends among students and faculty at the Pasadena Art Center
Art Center College of Design
Art Center College of Design is a private college located in Pasadena, California, and was cited by BusinessWeek as one of the 60 best design schools in the world. The college’s industrial design program is consistently ranked number one by both DesignIntelligence and U.S...
. Here, he was first exposed to the streamlined modernist sculptural statements of artists like Jean Arp
Jean Arp
Jean Arp / Hans Arp was a German-French, or Alsatian, sculptor, painter, poet and abstract artist in other media such as torn and pasted paper....
, Constantin Brâncuşi
Constantin Brancusi
Constantin Brâncuşi was a Romanian-born sculptor who made his career in France. As a child he displayed an aptitude for carving wooden farm tools. Formal studies took him first to Bucharest, then to Munich, then to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris...
, and the English sculptor Henry Moore
Henry Moore
Henry Spencer Moore OM CH FBA was an English sculptor and artist. He was best known for his semi-abstract monumental bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art....
. These three men – along with the English sculptress Barbara Hepworth
Barbara Hepworth
Dame Barbara Hepworth DBE was an English sculptor. Her work exemplifies Modernism, and with such contemporaries as Ivon Hitchens, Henry Moore, Ben Nicholson, Naum Gabo she helped to develop modern art in Britain.-Life and work:Jocelyn Barbara Hepworth was born on 10 January 1903 in Wakefield,...
, who was among the first sculptors to place sculptural voids within the solid planes of her works – would come to have a huge influence on Houser.
After World War II, Houser applied for a commission at the Haskell Institute
Haskell Indian Nations University
Haskell Indian Nations University is a tribal university located in Lawrence, Kansas, for members of federally recognized Native American tribes in the United States...
in Lawrence, Kansas
Lawrence, Kansas
Lawrence is the sixth largest city in the U.S. State of Kansas and the county seat of Douglas County. Located in northeastern Kansas, Lawrence is the anchor city of the Lawrence, Kansas, Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of Douglas County...
. Haskell, a Native American boarding school, lost many graduates to the war and wanted a sculptural memorial to honor them. Though Houser had been carving in wood since 1940, he had never before sculpted in stone. He convinced the jury with his drawings and his conviction, and completed the monumental work Comrades in Mourning from white Carrara
Carrara
Carrara is a city and comune in the province of Massa-Carrara , notable for the white or blue-grey marble quarried there. It is on the Carrione River, some west-northwest of Florence....
marble in 1948. It has become an iconic work, both for the artist and for Native American art in general.
Teaching
In 1949, Houser received a Guggenheim FellowshipGuggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...
in sculpture and painting, which granted him two years to work on art and still provide for his family. By then, Houser had three sons and as the Fellowship came to an end, he accepted a job as an art teacher at the Intermountain Indian School
Intermountain Indian School
The Intermountain Indian School was an Indian boarding school in Brigham City, Utah.- History :The Intermountain Indian School, which is in Brigham City, Utah, was originally the Bushnell Army Hospital, which was open from 1942 to 1947 serving wounded soldiers of World War II...
in Brigham City, Utah
Brigham City, Utah
Brigham City is a city in Box Elder County, Utah, United States. The population was 17,899 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Box Elder County. It lies on the western slope of the Wellsville Mountains, a branch of the Wasatch Range at the western terminus of Box Elder Canyon...
.
Primarily a Navajo
Navajo people
The Navajo of the Southwestern United States are the largest single federally recognized tribe of the United States of America. The Navajo Nation has 300,048 enrolled tribal members. The Navajo Nation constitutes an independent governmental body which manages the Navajo Indian reservation in the...
boarding school, the Intermountain Indian School was where Houser began to build the teaching part of his legacy, with generations of students working directly with the man to learn the skills, techniques, patience, and tenacity that he brought to his life and work.
The Intermountain years gave Houser a time to teach, raise a family, and focus on his painting. He completed hundreds of paintings there, experimenting with watercolors, oils, and other media. While at Intermountain, he also worked as a children’s book illustrator, providing drawings and paintings for seven titles – including an illustrated biography on the life of his granduncle Geronimo.
In 1962, Houser was asked to join the faculty of a new Native American art school, the Institute of American Indian Arts
Institute of American Indian Arts
The Institute of American Indian Arts is a college focused on Native American art. It is situated in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It is congressionally chartered, and was created by an executive order of former American President John F. Kennedy in 1962...
. He returned to Santa Fe
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Santa Fe is the capital of the U.S. state of New Mexico. It is the fourth-largest city in the state and is the seat of . Santa Fe had a population of 67,947 in the 2010 census...
with his family to head up the Institute’s sculpture department. Casting his first bronzes in 1967, Houser was student and teacher as well, bringing forth his own history and ideas for a student body culled from every corner of Native America. He began working with the iconographies of other tribes, using modernist sculptural influences to forge the tribal and the abstract into a visual lexicon all his own.
During the early 1970s, Houser continued to teach at the Institute and began the rigorous production and exhibition cycle for which he became well known. As head of the sculpture department, he felt compelled to work in as many sculptural media as possible, evidenced by his solo exhibition of stone, bronze, and welded steel sculptures at the Heard Museum
Heard Museum
The Heard Museum of Native Cultures and Art is a museum located in Phoenix, Arizona, USA. There is also the Heard Museum North Scottsdale branch in Scottsdale and the Heard Museum West branch in Surprise....
in Phoenix, Arizona
Phoenix, Arizona
Phoenix is the capital, and largest city, of the U.S. state of Arizona, as well as the sixth most populated city in the United States. Phoenix is home to 1,445,632 people according to the official 2010 U.S. Census Bureau data...
in 1970. The following year, Houser exhibited paintings and sculpture at the Philbrook Museum of Art
Philbrook Museum of Art
The Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa, Oklahoma is an art museum and former home of Oklahoma oil pioneer Waite Phillips and his wife Genevieve Phillips. , the museum has a staff of 60 and an operating budget of nearly $6 million....
in Tulsa, and in 1973 was awarded the Gold Medal in Sculpture at the Heard Museum Exhibition.
Exhibitions, awards, and accolades continued. In 1975, he was asked to paint the official portrait of former U.S. Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall
Stewart Udall
Stewart Lee Udall was an American politician. After serving three terms as a congressman from Arizona, he served as Secretary of the Interior from 1961 to 1969, under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B...
. That same year, he had a solo exhibition at the Governor’s Gallery at the State Capitol in Santa Fe. After thirteen years at IAIA, Houser retired from fulltime teaching to devote himself to sculpture.
The Work of a lifetime
Houser’s retirement in 1975 marked the beginning of the most prolific stage of his career. With time, materials, and the family compound in southern Santa Fe county, Houser honed the visual language that was to become his artistic legacy. Fusing Native subject matter with the abstract forms and sculptural voids of his modernist peers, Houser carried the mantle of both Native American and Modernism to new levels, bringing forth such memorable images as the Lead Singer, Abstract Crown Dancer, and The Mystic.Houser also continued to produce remarkable figurative pieces as well, including the life-sized bronze work Chiricuhua Apache Family, dedicated in 1983 at the Fort Sill Apache Tribal Center in Apache, OK. The piece honored both the memory of his parents, Sam and Blossom, and commemorates the 70th anniversary of the release of his tribe’s prisoners-of-war from Fort Sill.
In 1985, Houser’s monumental bronze, Offering of the Sacred Pipe, was dedicated at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
in New York City A year later, he made a bronze bust of Geronimo to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of the surrender of the Chiricuhua Apaches. A cast of the bust was later presented to the National Portrait Gallery, where it remains in the permanent collection.
In his last five years, Houser produced a remarkable number of pieces, and received many awards for his life’s work. In 1989 he dedicated As Long as the Waters Flow, a monumental bronze commissioned for the Oklahoma
Oklahoma
Oklahoma is a state located in the South Central region of the United States of America. With an estimated 3,751,351 residents as of the 2010 census and a land area of 68,667 square miles , Oklahoma is the 28th most populous and 20th-largest state...
State Capitol building in Oklahoma City
Oklahoma city
Oklahoma City is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Oklahoma.Oklahoma City may also refer to:*Oklahoma City metropolitan area*Downtown Oklahoma City*Uptown Oklahoma City*Oklahoma City bombing*Oklahoma City National Memorial...
. In 1991, he presented a casting of a bronze Sacred Rain Arrow to the Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
. In the dedication
before the US Senate Select Committee on Indian Affairs, he dedicated the work to the American Indian. And in 1992, he became the first Native American to receive the National Medal of Arts
National Medal of Arts
The National Medal of Arts is an award and title created by the United States Congress in 1984, for the purpose of honoring artists and patrons of the arts. It is the highest honor conferred to an individual artist on behalf of the people. Honorees are selected by the National Endowment for the...
, awarded at a ceremony at the White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
by President George H. W. Bush
George H. W. Bush
George Herbert Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 41st President of the United States . He had previously served as the 43rd Vice President of the United States , a congressman, an ambassador, and Director of Central Intelligence.Bush was born in Milton, Massachusetts, to...
.
In 1993, Houser was honored by the dedication of the Allan Houser Art Park at the Institute of American Indian Arts
Institute of American Indian Arts
The Institute of American Indian Arts is a college focused on Native American art. It is situated in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It is congressionally chartered, and was created by an executive order of former American President John F. Kennedy in 1962...
, and in 1994, he returned to Washington, DC. for the last time to present the United States government
with the sculpture, May We Have Peace, a gift, he said, “To the people of the United States from the First Peoples.” The gift was accepted by First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton is the 67th United States Secretary of State, serving in the administration of President Barack Obama. She was a United States Senator for New York from 2001 to 2009. As the wife of the 42nd President of the United States, Bill Clinton, she was the First Lady of the...
for installation at the Vice President’s residence.
Drawings
Houser's primary skill as a draftsman is evident in the astounding volume of drawn work that was left behind in the Allan Houser Archive, located at the Houser family compound and sculpture garden in southern Santa Fe County, New Mexico. With over 6,000 images left behind, one can trace the remarkable output and varied subject of an artist who began all of his creations, including paintings and sculptures, with the act of hand to paper.Sculptures
While Houser's early career was marked by his drawings and paintings, it was for sculpture that he eventually became a world-renowned artist. Beginning in 1940 with simple wood carvings, Houser created his first monumental work in stone in 1949, the iconic piece "Comrades in Mourning" at the Haskell Institute in Lawrence, Kansas. But it would be quite some time before he had the time and resources to produce the remarkable bronzes shown here.Collections
Allan Houser's work can be found in collections all over the world. Below is a select list.- Albuquerque MuseumAlbuquerque MuseumThe Albuquerque Museum is located in Albuquerque, New Mexico in Old Town Albuquerque dedicated to preserving the art of the American Southwest and the history of Albuquerque and the Middle Rio Grande Valley of New Mexico. The museum also contributes significantly to the cultural and educational...
, Albuquerque, New Mexico - Albuquerque International SunportAlbuquerque International SunportAlbuquerque International Sunport is a public airport located 3 miles southeast of the central business district of Albuquerque, a city in Bernalillo County, New Mexico, United States. It is the largest commercial airport in the state, handling 5,888,811 passengers in 2009...
, New Mexico - Buffalo Bill Historical CenterBuffalo Bill Historical CenterThe Buffalo Bill Historical Center is a complex of museums displaying artifacts and art of the American West located in Cody, Wyoming. Founded in 1917, the Buffalo Bill Historical Center is the oldest museum in the West...
, Cody, Wyoming - BritishBritish Royal FamilyThe British Royal Family is the group of close relatives of the monarch of the United Kingdom. The term is also commonly applied to the same group of people as the relations of the monarch in her or his role as sovereign of any of the other Commonwealth realms, thus sometimes at variance with...
Royal CollectionRoyal CollectionThe Royal Collection is the art collection of the British Royal Family. It is property of the monarch as sovereign, but is held in trust for her successors and the nation. It contains over 7,000 paintings, 40,000 watercolours and drawings, and about 150,000 old master prints, as well as historical...
, London, England - Centre Georges PompidouCentre Georges PompidouCentre Georges Pompidou is a complex in the Beaubourg area of the 4th arrondissement of Paris, near Les Halles, rue Montorgueil and the Marais...
, Paris, France - Colorado Springs Fine Arts CenterColorado Springs Fine Arts CenterThe Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center is an arts center located just north of downtown Colorado Springs, Colorado. Located on the same city block are the American Numismatic Association and part of the campus of Colorado College....
, Colorado Springs, Colorado - Denver Art MuseumDenver Art MuseumThe Denver Art Museum is an art museum in Denver, Colorado located in Denver's Civic Center.It is known for its collection of American Indian art,and has a comprehensive collection numbering more than 68,000 works from across the world....
, Denver, Colorado - Haskell Indian Nations UniversityHaskell Indian Nations UniversityHaskell Indian Nations University is a tribal university located in Lawrence, Kansas, for members of federally recognized Native American tribes in the United States...
, Lawrence, Kansas - Heard MuseumHeard MuseumThe Heard Museum of Native Cultures and Art is a museum located in Phoenix, Arizona, USA. There is also the Heard Museum North Scottsdale branch in Scottsdale and the Heard Museum West branch in Surprise....
, Phoenix, Arizona - Institute of American Indian Arts Museum, Santa Fe, New Mexico
- James A. Michener Art MuseumJames A. Michener Art MuseumThe James A. Michener Art Museum is a private, non-profit museum in Doylestown, Bucks County, Pennsylvania founded in 1988 and named for the Pulitzer Prize–winning writer James A. Michener, a Doylestown resident...
, Doylestown, Pennsylvania - Japanese Royal Collection, Tokyo, Japan
- Museum of Fine ArtsNew Mexico Museum of ArtThe New Mexico Museum of Art , the oldest art museum in the state of New Mexico, is one of four state-run museums in Santa Fe...
, Santa Fe, New Mexico - National Museum of American Art, Washington, DC.
- National Museum of the American IndianNational Museum of the American IndianThe National Museum of the American Indian is a museum operated under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution that is dedicated to the life, languages, literature, history, and arts of the native Americans of the Western Hemisphere...
, Washington, DC. - National Museum of Wildlife ArtNational Museum of Wildlife ArtThe National Museum of Wildlife Art, located in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, is a museum dedicated to presenting art about wildlife. Located on a bluff called East Gros Ventre Butte and amid real wildlife habitat, the sandstone structure overlooks the National Elk Refuge...
, Jackson Hole, Wyoming - National Portrait GalleryNational Portrait Gallery (United States)The National Portrait Gallery is an art gallery in Washington, D.C., administered by the Smithsonian Institution. Its collections focus on images of famous individual Americans.-Building:...
, Washington, DC. - New Mexico State CapitolNew Mexico State CapitolThe New Mexico State Capitol, located in Santa Fe, New Mexico, is the house of government of the U.S. state of New Mexico. It is the only round state capitol in the United States, and is known informally as "the Roundhouse"....
, Santa Fe, New Mexico - Norman Rockwell MuseumNorman Rockwell MuseumThe Norman Rockwell Museum is home to the world's largest collection of original Rockwell art.-History:Founded in 1969, the museum is located in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, where Rockwell lived the last 25 years of his life. The museum has been at its current location since 1993. The museum...
, Corning, New York - Oklahoma State CapitolOklahoma State CapitolThe Oklahoma State Capitol is the house of government of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. It is the building that houses the Oklahoma Legislature, and the meeting place of the Oklahoma Supreme Court. It is located along Lincoln Boulevard in Oklahoma City. The present structure includes a dome that was...
, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma - Palm Springs Desert Museum, California
- Philbrook Museum of ArtPhilbrook Museum of ArtThe Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa, Oklahoma is an art museum and former home of Oklahoma oil pioneer Waite Phillips and his wife Genevieve Phillips. , the museum has a staff of 60 and an operating budget of nearly $6 million....
, Tulsa, OklahomaTulsa, OklahomaTulsa is the second-largest city in the state of Oklahoma and 46th-largest city in the United States. With a population of 391,906 as of the 2010 census, it is the principal municipality of the Tulsa Metropolitan Area, a region with 937,478 residents in the MSA and 988,454 in the CSA. Tulsa's... - Philharmonic Center for the Arts, Naples, Florida
- Sundance InstituteSundance InstituteSundance Institute is a non-profit organization founded by Robert Redford in 1981 that actively advances the work of filmmakers and storytellers worldwide...
, Sundance, Utah - U.S Mission at the United NationsUnited NationsThe United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
, New York, New York - University of OklahomaUniversity of OklahomaThe University of Oklahoma is a coeducational public research university located in Norman, Oklahoma. Founded in 1890, it existed in Oklahoma Territory near Indian Territory for 17 years before the two became the state of Oklahoma. the university had 29,931 students enrolled, most located at its...
, Norman, OklahomaNorman, OklahomaNorman is a city in Cleveland County, Oklahoma, United States, and is located south of downtown Oklahoma City. It is part of the Oklahoma City metropolitan area. As of the 2010 census, Norman was to have 110,925 full-time residents, making it the third-largest city in Oklahoma and the... - Wheelwright Museum, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Legacy
Allan Houser died in Santa Fe, New Mexico, at the age of eighty in August 1994.He was fortunate to have been the kind of artist who did not need to be “discovered” after his death, for he enjoyed a career in which he was able to create not just for his own satisfaction, but for an appreciative public as well.
Upon his death, the honors kept coming. Among these was the installation of 19 monumental works of art in Salt Lake City during the 2002 Olympics, and a retrospective of 69 works at the National Museum of the American Indian
National Museum of the American Indian
The National Museum of the American Indian is a museum operated under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution that is dedicated to the life, languages, literature, history, and arts of the native Americans of the Western Hemisphere...
in Washington, DC. in 2004—2005. The exhibition marked the first major show for the new museum, and over three million people viewed it while it was on display.
And as a teacher for most of his working life, Allan Houser also enjoys the legacy of having passed on his direction, patience and skills to generations of Native American artists, including many from the IAIA years who are, in turn, passing on their skills to other generations.
After Houser's death in 1994, his legacy has been carried on by family members, including his two sons who have achieved success as sculptors, Philip Haozous and Bob Haozous
Bob Haozous
Bob Haozous is a Chiricahua Apache sculptor from Santa Fe, New Mexico. He is enrolled in the Fort Sill Apache Tribe.-Background:Bob Haozous was born on 1 April 1943 in Los Angeles, California. His parents are Anna Marie Gallegos, a Diné-Mestiza textile artist, and the late Allan Houser , a famous...
, and his grandson, Sam Atakra Haozous, an experimental photographer. The non-profit Allan Houser Foundation is devoted to the proliferation of the Houser name. The family also maintains a commercial gallery of Allan Houser's work in downtown Santa Fe and the Allan Houser Compound, a foundry and sculpture garden located south of Santa Fe.
Exhibits
Allan Houser's work continues to receive academic and institutional exposure. His estate works with museums, art galleries and public spaces around the world on ongoing exhibits. Planned for 2008 & 2009 are exhibits of Houser's abstract and modernist works at Grounds for SculptureGrounds for Sculpture
Grounds For Sculpture is a sculpture park and museum located in Hamilton Township, Mercer County, New Jersey, United States, on the former site of the New Jersey State Fairgrounds...
in Hamilton, New Jersey (Opening October 2008); a dual show of his major works in opened at the Heard Museum and the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix Arizona in November 2009. In 2008 the Oklahoma History Center
Oklahoma History Center
The Oklahoma History Center is the history museum of the State of Oklahoma. Located across the street from the Governor's mansion at 2401 N. Laird Avenue in Oklahoma City, the museum opened in 2005 and is operated by the Oklahoma Historical Society...
held a major exhibition, "Unconquered: Allan Houser and the Legacy of one Apache Family," that looks at three generations of the Haozous/Houser family.
Major collections of Allan Houser's work can also be found in museums around the United States and the world.
External links
- Allan Houser's Official Website
- "Native Modernism: The Art of George Morrison and Allan Houser" Published to accompany the major inaugural exhibition at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, DC., showcasing the work of these two highly acclaimed artists.
- "As Long as the Waters Flow": Allan Houser's Towering Tribute to the Spirit of Native Americans outside of the Oklahoma State Capital