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Allan Capron Houser or Haozous (June 30, 1914 – August 22, 1994) was a Chiricahua Apache sculptor, painter and book illustrator born in
Oklahoma Oklahoma (; Choctaw language, Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the nor ...
."A Tribute."
''Allan Houser.'' Accessed March 26, 2011.
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
Smithsonian Museum of American Art The Smithsonian American Art Museum (commonly known as SAAM, and formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds o ...
, the National Museum of the American Indian, the
National Portrait Gallery National Portrait Gallery may refer to: *National Portrait Gallery (Australia), in Canberra *National Portrait Gallery (Sweden), in Mariefred *National Portrait Gallery (United States), in Washington, D.C. *National Portrait Gallery, London, with s ...
in
Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
, and in numerous major museum collections throughout North America, Europe and Japan. Additionally, Houser's ''Offering of the Sacred Pipe'' is on display at United States Mission to the United Nations in
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
.


Childhood and school days

Born in 1914 to Sam and Blossom Haozous on the family farm near
Apache, Oklahoma Apache is a town in Caddo County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 1,444 at the 2010 census. History Before opening the Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache Reservation on August 1, 1901, for unrestricted settlement by non-Indians, Land Lott ...
HOUSER (HAOZOUS), ALLAN (1914-1994).
Oklahoma Historical Society. Retrieved March 30, 2011
and
Fort Sill Fort Sill is a United States Army post north of Lawton, Oklahoma, about 85 miles (136.8 km) southwest of Oklahoma City. It covers almost . The fort was first built during the Indian Wars. It is designated as a National Historic Landmark ...
, 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 spiritual leader
Geronimo Geronimo ( apm, Goyaałé, , ; June 16, 1829 – February 17, 1909) was a prominent leader and medicine man from the Bedonkohe band of the Ndendahe Apache people. From 1850 to 1886, Geronimo joined with members of three other Central Apache ba ...
, 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 Kramer (December 2, 1903 – July 5, 1992) 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 Chi ...
's Art Studio at the
Santa Fe Indian School The Federal Government established the Santa Fe Indian School (SFIS) in 1890 to educate Native American children from tribes throughout the Southwestern United States. The purpose of creating SFIS was an attempt to assimilate the Native American c ...
in
Santa Fe, New Mexico Santa Fe ( ; , Spanish for 'Holy Faith'; tew, Oghá P'o'oge, Tewa for 'white shell water place'; tiw, Hulp'ó'ona, label=Tiwa language, Northern Tiwa; nv, Yootó, Navajo for 'bead + water place') is the capital of the U.S. state of 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.


Early career

In 1939, Houser began his professional career by showing work at the
1939 New York World's Fair The 1939–40 New York World's Fair was a world's fair held at Flushing Meadows–Corona Park in Queens, New York, United States. It was the second-most expensive American world's fair of all time, exceeded only by St. Louis's Louisiana Purchas ...
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. He then returned to Fort Sill to study with Swedish muralist
Olle Nordmark Olle Emanuel Nordmark (May 25, 1890 – December 18, 1973) was a Swedish painter and muralist born in Nordanholen at Mockfjärd parish. He was focused on an art career from an early age. After emigrating in 1924 to the United States to gain ...
, who encouraged Houser to explore sculpture. He made his first wood carvings that year. When
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
interrupted Houser's life and career path, 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 Hans Peter Wilhelm Arp (16 September 1886 – 7 June 1966), better known as Jean Arp in English, was a German-French sculptor, painter, and poet. He was known as a Dadaist and an abstract artist. Early life Arp was born in Straßburg (now Stras ...
,
Constantin Brâncuși Constantin Brâncuși (; February 19, 1876 – March 16, 1957) was a Romanian Sculpture, sculptor, painter and photographer who made his career in France. Considered one of the most influential sculptors of the 20th-century and a pioneer of ...
, and the English sculptor
Henry Moore Henry Spencer Moore (30 July 1898 – 31 August 1986) was an English artist. He is best known for his semi- abstract monumental bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art. As well as sculpture, Moore produced ...
. These three men – along with the English sculptress
Barbara Hepworth Dame Jocelyn Barbara Hepworth (10 January 1903 – 20 May 1975) was an English artist and sculptor. Her work exemplifies Modernism and in particular modern sculpture. Along with artists such as Ben Nicholson and Naum Gabo, Hepworth was a leadi ...
, 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 is a public tribal land-grant university in Lawrence, Kansas, United States. Founded in 1884 as a residential boarding school for American Indian children, the school has developed into a university operated by ...
in
Lawrence, Kansas Lawrence is the county seat of Douglas County, Kansas, Douglas County, Kansas, United States, and the sixth-largest city in the state. It is in the northeastern sector of the state, astride Interstate 70, between the Kansas River, Kansas and Waka ...
. 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.


Teaching

In 1949, Houser received a
Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...
in sculpture and painting, which granted him two years to work on art and still provide for growing family. From 1952 to 1962, Houser worked as an art teacher at the
Intermountain Indian School The Intermountain Indian School (1950–1984) was a Native American boarding school in Brigham City, Utah. History This was originally the site of Bushnell Army Hospital. It operated from 1942 to 1946 and served wounded soldiers of World W ...
in
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 ...
, which was primarily a Navajo boarding school. The Intermountain years gave Houser 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. One of his notable students at the Intermountain Indian School was artist
Robert Chee Robert Chee, also known as Hashke-Yil-Cale (1937–1971) was a Navajo contemporary artist and author. He is best known for his painting and serigraphy, but he also worked as an illustrator, and weaver. Early life and education Robert Chee was b ...
. In 1962, Houser was asked to join the faculty of a new Native American art school, the
Institute of American Indian Arts The Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) is a public tribal land-grant college in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The college focuses on Native American art. It operates the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (MoCNA), which is housed in the historic S ...
. 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 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 ...
in
Phoenix, Arizona Phoenix ( ; nv, Hoozdo; es, Fénix or , yuf-x-wal, Banyà:nyuwá) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of cities and towns in Arizona#List of cities and towns, most populous city of the U.S. state of Arizona, with 1 ...
in 1970. The following year, Houser exhibited paintings and sculpture at the Philbrook Museum of Art in
Tulsa Tulsa () is the second-largest city in the U.S. state, state of Oklahoma and List of United States cities by population, 47th-most populous city in the United States. The population was 413,066 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. ...
, 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 Lee Udall (January 31, 1920 – March 20, 2010) was an American politician and later, a federal government official. After serving three terms as a congressman from Arizona, he served as Secretary of the Interior from 1961 to 1969, unde ...
. 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 full-time teaching to devote himself to sculpture.


Later work

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 ''Chiricahua 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. Houser's work was explored in a series on American Indian artists for the
Public Broadcasting System The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educati ...
(PBS). Other artists in the series included
R. C. Gorman Rudolph Carl Gorman (July 26, 1931 – November 3, 2005) was a Native American artist of the Navajo Nation. Referred to as "the Picasso of American Indian artists" by ''The New York Times'', his paintings are primarily of Native American wo ...
,
Helen Hardin Helen Hardin (May 28, 1943 – June 9, 1984) (Tewa name: Tsa-sah-wee-eh, which means "Little Standing Spruce") was a Native American painter.Pamela Michaelis"Helen Hardin 1943–1984."''The Collector's Guide'' (retrieved 16 Feb 2010). She starte ...
,
Charles Loloma Charles Sequevya Loloma (January 7, 1921 — June 9, 1991) was an American artist of indigenous Hopi descent. He was a highly influential Native American jeweler during the 20th century. He popularized use of gold and gemstones not previously use ...
,
Joseph Lonewolf Joseph Lonewolf (January 26, 1932 – November 9, 2014) was a Native American potter from Santa Clara Pueblo, New Mexico, United States. He was known for his use of historical methods and his development of sgraffito and bas-relief techniques used ...
, and
Fritz Scholder Fritz William Scholder V (October 6, 1937 – February 10, 2005) was a Native American artist. Scholder was an enrolled member of the La Jolla Band of Luiseno Indians, a federally recognized tribe of Luiseños, a California Mission tribe. Schold ...
. In 1985, Houser's monumental bronze, ''Offering of the Sacred Pipe'', was dedicated at the U.S. Mission to the
United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...
in New York City. A year later, he made a bronze bust of Geronimo to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of the surrender of the Chiricahua 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 (; Choctaw language, Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the nor ...
State Capitol building in
Oklahoma City Oklahoma City (), officially the City of Oklahoma City, and often shortened to OKC, is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The county seat of Oklahoma County, it ranks 20th among United States cities in population, a ...
. In 1991, he presented a casting of a bronze ''Sacred Rain Arrow'' to the
Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...
. 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 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 Patronage, patrons of the arts. A prestigious American honor, it is the highest honor given to artists and ar ...
, awarded at a ceremony at the
White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800. ...
by President
George H. W. Bush George Herbert Walker BushSince around 2000, he has been usually called George H. W. Bush, Bush Senior, Bush 41 or Bush the Elder to distinguish him from his eldest son, George W. Bush, who served as the 43rd president from 2001 to 2009; pr ...
. In 1993, Houser was honored by the dedication of the Allan Houser Art Park at the
Institute of American Indian Arts The Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) is a public tribal land-grant college in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The college focuses on Native American art. It operates the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (MoCNA), which is housed in the historic S ...
, 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 Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...
." The gift was accepted by First Lady
Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton ( Rodham; born October 26, 1947) is an American politician, diplomat, and former lawyer who served as the 67th United States Secretary of State for President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, as a United States sen ...
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 subjects 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 Museum The Albuquerque Museum, formerly known as the Albuquerque Museum of Art and History, is a public art and history museum in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The museum is located in the Old Town area and is operated by the City of Albuquerque Department of ...
,
Albuquerque Albuquerque ( ; ), ; kee, Arawageeki; tow, Vakêêke; zun, Alo:ke:k'ya; apj, Gołgéeki'yé. abbreviated ABQ, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Mexico. Its nicknames, The Duke City and Burque, both reference its founding in ...
, New Mexico * Albuquerque International Sunport, New Mexico * Allard School of Law, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada *
Buffalo Bill Historical Center The Buffalo Bill Center of the West, formerly known as the Buffalo Bill Historical Center, is a complex of five museums and a research library featuring art and artifacts of the American West located in Cody, Wyoming. The five museums include the ...
, Cody, Wyoming * British
Royal Collection The Royal Collection of the British royal family is the largest private art collection in the world. Spread among 13 occupied and historic royal residences in the United Kingdom, the collection is owned by King Charles III and overseen by the ...
, London, England *
Centre Georges Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the Centre national d'art et de culture Georges-Pompidou ( en, National Georges Pompidou Centre of Art and Culture), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English, is a complex building in the Beaubourg area of ...
, Paris, France * Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, Colorado Springs, Colorado *
Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native A ...
, Hanover, New Hampshire * Denver Art Museum, Denver, Colorado *
Eiteljorg Museum The Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art is an art museum in downtown Indianapolis, Indiana, United States. The Eiteljorg houses an extensive collection of visual arts by indigenous peoples of the Americas as well as Western Ame ...
, Indianapolis, Indiana * Haskell Indian Nations University, Lawrence, Kansas *
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 ...
, Phoenix, Arizona *
Institute of American Indian Arts Museum The Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) is a public tribal land-grant college in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The college focuses on Native American art. It operates the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (MoCNA), which is housed in the historic S ...
, Santa Fe, New Mexico *
James A. Michener Art Museum The Michener Art Museum is a private, non-profit museum that is located in Doylestown, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1988, it was named for the Pulitzer Prize–winning writer James A. Michener, a Doylestown resident. Situated within ...
, Doylestown, Pennsylvania * Japanese Royal Collection, Tokyo, Japan * National Museum of American Art, Washington, DC. * National Museum of the American Indian, Washington, DC. * National Museum of Wildlife Art, Jackson Hole, Wyoming *
National Portrait Gallery National Portrait Gallery may refer to: *National Portrait Gallery (Australia), in Canberra *National Portrait Gallery (Sweden), in Mariefred *National Portrait Gallery (United States), in Washington, D.C. *National Portrait Gallery, London, with s ...
, Washington, DC. * New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe, New Mexico *
New Mexico State Capitol The New Mexico State Capitol, located in Santa Fe at 490 Old Santa Fe Trail, is the seat 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". Desig ...
, Santa Fe, New Mexico *
Norman Rockwell Museum The Norman Rockwell Museum is an art museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, dedicated to the art of Norman Rockwell. It is home to the world's largest collection of original Rockwell art. The museum also hosts traveling exhibitions pertaining to A ...
, Stockbridge, Massachusetts * Oklahoma State Capitol, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma *
Palm Springs Desert Museum The Palm Springs Art Museum (formerly the Palm Springs Desert Museum) was founded in 1938, and is a regional art, natural science and performing arts institution for Palm Springs and the Coachella Valley, in Riverside County, California, United St ...
, California * Philbrook Museum of Art,
Tulsa, Oklahoma Tulsa () is the second-largest city in the state of Oklahoma and 47th-most populous city in the United States. The population was 413,066 as of the 2020 census. It is the principal municipality of the Tulsa Metropolitan Area, a region with ...
* Philharmonic Center for the Arts, Naples, Florida * Sundance Institute, Sundance, Utah * U.S Mission at the
United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...
, New York, New York *
University of Oklahoma The University of Oklahoma (OU) is a Public university, public research university in Norman, Oklahoma. Founded in 1890, it had existed in Oklahoma Territory near Indian Territory for 17 years before the two Territories became the state of Oklahom ...
,
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, Oklahoma, Cleveland County, and the second-largest city in the Oklahoma C ...
* 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 Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the Capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Utah, most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the county seat, seat of Salt Lake County, Utah, Sal ...
during the 2002 Olympics, and a retrospective of 69 works at the National Museum of the American Indian in
Washington, DC. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, Na ...
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. 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 2018, Houser became one of the inductees in the first induction ceremony held by the National Native American Hall of Fame. A figural group created by Houser in 1990 was moved to the
Oval Office The Oval Office is the formal working space of the President of the United States. Part of the Executive Office of the President of the United States, it is located in the West Wing of the White House, in Washington, D.C. The oval-shaped room ...
when Joe Biden began his presidency in 2021. The sculpture depicting a running horse and a Native male rider is currently placed on one of the shelves in the president's office and was previously exhibited at the National Museum of the American Indian.


Exhibitions

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. Houser's abstract and modernist works were exhibited at Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton, New Jersey (2008), and his major works were shown at the Heard Museum and the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, Arizona in November 2009. In 2008 the
Oklahoma History Center The Oklahoma History Center (OHC) is the history museum of the state of Oklahoma. Located on an plot across the street from the Governor's mansion at 800 Nazih Zuhdi Drive in Oklahoma City, the current museum opened in 2005 and is operated by t ...
held a major exhibition, "Unconquered: Allan Houser and the Legacy of one Apache Family," that looks at three generations of the Haozous/Houser family. Houser's work was part of ''Stretching the Canvas: Eight Decades of Native Painting'' (2019–21), a survey at the National Museum of the American Indian George Gustav Heye Center. Major collections of Allan Houser's work can also be found in museums around the United States and the world.


References


External links


Allan Houser's Official Website

The Oklahoma Arts Council is pleased to announce the recent acquisition of Allan Houser's sculpture Dialogue. Currently on exhibit in the Betty Price Gallery


* ttp://www.cowboysindians.com/Cowboys-Indians/March-2014/Allan-Houser/ "Allan Houser: Join the centennial celebration of the birth of the world-famous Chiricahua Apache artist."
Allan Houser: The Dean of Stone
video from ''Colores'', New Mexico PBS, KNME.org {{DEFAULTSORT:Houser, Allan 1914 births 1994 deaths 20th-century American painters American male painters 20th-century American sculptors 20th-century American male artists American male sculptors Apache people Artists from Santa Fe, New Mexico Chiricahua Institute of American Indian Arts faculty Native American sculptors Painters from Oklahoma People from Caddo County, Oklahoma Federal Art Project artists Sculptors from New Mexico Sculptors from Oklahoma Native American male artists