Spencer Asah (c. 1908–1954) was a
Kiowa
Kiowa () people are a Native American tribe and an indigenous people of the Great Plains of the United States. They migrated southward from western Montana into the Rocky Mountains in Colorado in the 17th and 18th centuries,Pritzker 326 and e ...
painter and a member of the
Kiowa Six The Kiowa Six, previously known as the Kiowa Five, is a group of six Kiowa artists from Oklahoma in the early 20th century, working in the "Kiowa style". The artists were Spencer Asah, James Auchiah, Jack Hokeah, Stephen Mopope, Monroe Tsatoke and L ...
from
Oklahoma.
Early life
Spencer Asah was born in 1908 in
Carnegie, Oklahoma
Carnegie is a town in Caddo County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 1,723 at the 2010 census, a 1.7 percent decline from the figure of 1,752 in 2000.
History and culture
Carnegie was named after the famous Scottish American philant ...
. His Kiowa name was Lallo (Little Boy). His father was a buffalo medicine man. Asah's father provided him with extensive cultural information that he later used in his art.
Asah attended St. Patrick's Mission School in
Anadarko, Oklahoma
Anadarko is a city in Caddo County, Oklahoma, United States. The city is fifty miles southwest of Oklahoma City. The population was 5,745 at the 2020 census. It is the county seat of Caddo County.
History
Anadarko got its name when its post of ...
, where he received his first art instruction from Sister Olivia Taylor, a
Choctaw nun. Government field matron
Susie Peters arranged for Mrs. Willie Baze Lane, an artist from
Chickasha, Oklahoma
Chickasha is a city in and the county seat of Grady County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 16,036 at the 2010 census. Chickasha is home to the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma. The city is named for and strongly connecte ...
, to provide further art instruction for young Kiowa artists, including Asah. Recognizing the talent of some of the young artists, Peters convinced Swedish-American artist
Oscar Jacobson
Oscar Brousse Jacobson (May 16, 1882 – September 15, 1966) was a Swedish-born American painter and museum curator. From 1915 to 1945, he was the director of the University of Oklahoma's School of Art, later known as the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of ...
, director of the
University of Oklahoma
, mottoeng = "For the benefit of the Citizen and the State"
, type = Public research university
, established =
, academic_affiliations =
, endowment = $2.7billion (2021)
, pr ...
's School of Art, to accept the Kiowa students into a special program at the school,
[Pochoir prints of ledger drawings by the Kiowa Five, 1929.]
''Smithsonian Institution Research Information System.'' (retrieved 24 April 2009) in which they were coached and encouraged by
Edith Mahier.
Kiowa Six
The
Kiowa Six The Kiowa Six, previously known as the Kiowa Five, is a group of six Kiowa artists from Oklahoma in the early 20th century, working in the "Kiowa style". The artists were Spencer Asah, James Auchiah, Jack Hokeah, Stephen Mopope, Monroe Tsatoke and L ...
, included six artists: Spencer Asah,
James Auchiah
James Auchiah (1906–1974) was a Kiowa painter and one of the Kiowa Six from Oklahoma.Watson, Mary JoAuchiah, James (1906-1974) ''Oklahoma Historical Society's Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture.'' (28 April 2009)
Early life
James Au ...
,
Jack Hokeah
Jack Hokeah (December 4, 1901 - December 14, 1969) was a Kiowa painter, one of the Kiowa Six, from Oklahoma.
Early life
Jack Hokeah was born in 1901 in western Oklahoma.Lester, 239 He was orphaned at a very young age and raised by his grandmother ...
,
Stephen Mopope,
Lois Smoky Kaulaity
Lois Smoky Kaulaity (1907–1981) was a Kiowa beadwork artist and a painter, one of the Kiowa Six, from Oklahoma.Watson, Mary JoSmoky, Lois (1907-1981) ''Oklahoma Historical Society's Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture.'' (5 May 2009)
...
, and
Monroe Tsatoke. In 1926, Asah, Hokeah, Tsatoke, Mopope, and Smoky moved to
Norman, Oklahoma
Norman () is the third-largest city in the U.S. state of Oklahoma, with a population of 128,097 as of 2021. It is the largest city and the county seat of Cleveland County, and the second-largest city in the Oklahoma City metropolitan area, b ...
and began their art studies at OU. Smoky returned home late in 1927, while Auchiah joined the group that year.
[
In 1928, the Kiowa Six had their major breakthrough into the international fine arts' world by exhibiting at the First International Art Exposition in ]Prague
Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and List of cities in the Czech Republic, largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 milli ...
, Czechoslovakia. Dr. Jacobson arranged for their work to be shown in several other countries and for ''Kiowa Art'', a portfolio of pochoir
Stencilling produces an image or pattern on a surface, by applying pigment to a surface through an intermediate object, with designed holes in the intermediate object, to create a pattern or image on a surface, by allowing the pigment to reach ...
print artists' paintings, to be published in France.[ Towards the late 1920s, their critically acclaimed watercolor art works were being shown throughout the United States and Europe.
]
Public collections
Asah's work can be found in the following public art collections:
*Anadarko City Museum
*Denver Art Museum
The Denver Art Museum (DAM) is an art museum located in the Civic Center of Denver, Colorado. With encyclopedic collections of more than 70,000 diverse works from across the centuries and world, the DAM is one of the largest art museums between ...
*Gilcrease Museum
Gilcrease Museum, also known as the Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art, is a museum northwest of downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma housing the world's largest, most comprehensive collection of art of the American West, as well as a gro ...
*Heard Museum
The Heard Museum is a private, not-for-profit museum in Phoenix, Arizona, United States, dedicated to the advancement of American Indian art. It presents the stories of American Indian people from a first-person perspective, as well as exhibitio ...
*Indian Arts and Crafts Board, US Department of the Interior
*Indian Arts and Crafts Board, Denman Collection
*The George Gustav Heye Center
The National Museum of the American Indian–New York, the George Gustav Heye Center, is a branch of the National Museum of the American Indian at the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House in Manhattan, New York City. The museum is part of the Sm ...
*McNay Art Museum
The McNay Art Museum, founded in 1954 in San Antonio, is the first modern art museum in the U.S. state of Texas. The museum was created by Marion Koogler McNay's original bequest of most of her fortune, her important art collection and her 24-room ...
*Museum of Northern Arizona
The Museum of Northern Arizona is a museum in Flagstaff, Arizona, United States, that was established as a repository for Indigenous material and natural history specimens from the Colorado Plateau.
The museum was founded in 1928 by zoologist ...
*Museum of Northern Arizona, Katherine Harvey Collection
*Museum of New Mexico The Museum of New Mexico is a collection of museums, historic sites, and archaeological services governed by the State of New Mexico. It currently consists of six divisions : the Palace of the Governors state history museum, the New Mexico Museum o ...
*Oklahoma Science and Art Foundation, Gerrer Collection
*Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art
The Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art is an art museum on the University of Oklahoma campus in Norman, Oklahoma.
Overview
The University of Oklahoma’s Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art holds over 20,000 objects in its permanent collection. The museum c ...
*Philbrook Museum of Art
Philbrook Museum of Art is an art museum with expansive formal gardens located in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The museum, which opened in 1939, is located in a former 1920s villa, "Villa Philbrook", the home of Oklahoma oil pioneer Waite Phillips and his ...
*Southern Plains Indian Museum
* Woolaroc Museum
Later life
Spencer Asah was a traditional singer and dancer who was active in Oklahoma's powwow circuit. Asah married Ida, a Comanche woman, with whom he had three children. He died in 1954.[Wyckoff, 65]
See also
*List of Native American artists
This is a list of visual artists who are Native Americans in the United States. The Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990 defines "Native American" as being enrolled in either federally recognized tribes or state recognized tribes or "an individua ...
*Visual arts by indigenous peoples of the Americas
Visual arts by indigenous peoples of the Americas encompasses the visual artistic practices of the indigenous peoples of the Americas from ancient times to the present. These include works from South America and North America, which includes ...
Notes
References
*Lester, Patrick D. ''The Biographical Directory of Native American Painters''. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995. .
*Lydia L. Wyckoff, ed. ''Visions and voices : Native American painting from the Philbrook Museum of Art''. Tulsa, OK: Philbrook Museum of Art, 1996.
External links
Spencer Asah, article from the Oklahoma Historical Society
Jacobson House Native Art Center: About the Kiowa Six
{{DEFAULTSORT:Asah, Spencer
Kiowa people
Native American painters
Artists from Oklahoma
People from Carnegie, Oklahoma
20th-century births
1954 deaths
Year of birth uncertain
People from Norman, Oklahoma
People from Anadarko, Oklahoma