Kevin Red Star (born 1943) is a Native American painter from

Montana Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columb ...

. He is a member of the

Crow Tribe of Montana The Crow, whose autonym is Apsáalooke (), also spelled Absaroka, are Native Americans living primarily in southern Montana. Today, the Crow people have a federally recognized tribe, the Crow Tribe of Montana, with an Indian reservation loca ...

Background

Kevin Red Star was born on the

Crow Indian Reservation The Crow Indian Reservation is the homeland of the Crow Tribe. Established 1868, the reservation is located in parts of Big Horn, Yellowstone, and Treasure counties in southern Montana in the United States. The Crow Tribe has an enrolled member ...

Lodge Grass, Montana Lodge Grass ( cro, Eelalapiío) is a town in Big Horn County, Montana, United States. The population was 441 at the 2020 census. It is at the confluence of Lodge Grass Creek and the Little Bighorn River, on the Crow Indian Reservation. Source ...

. He was raised in a family that values art and culture, where he developed an early love of drawing and music. This exposure and encouragement sustained him during his years in grade school during the time when Crow students were denied association with their language and cultural heritage.

Education

Later, when he was one of 150 students chosen to attend the newly established

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 ...

in Santa Fe, New Mexico, he was encouraged to explore his history and culture through modern art techniques. Upon graduation, Red Star and several other Native students received scholarships to the San Francisco Art Institute. Here he was exposed to the avant-garde and political and social concerns of post-modern art. He also attended Montana State University, Bozeman, Montana and Eastern Montana College (now MSU Billings),

Billings, Montana Billings is the largest city in the U.S. state of Montana, with a population of 117,116 as of the 2020 census. Located in the south-central portion of the state, it is the seat of Yellowstone County and the principal city of the Billings Met ...

Art career

Working primarily in acrylic, ink, and collage, Red Star draws inspiration from Crow culture and history. Pursuing a successful career spanning several decades, over 100 exhibitions have featured the celebrated artist's works on canvas and paper – some 40 of which have been solo exhibitions. Red Star'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 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 ...

in New York.

Honors

In 1997, Kevin Red Star received an Honorary Doctorate Degree in Fine Art from the Rocky Mountain College in Billings, Montana.

Collections

Red Star's works are included in several museum collections, including 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 ...

: National Museum of the American Indian; C.M. Russell Museum;

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 ...

; Denver Art Museum; Eiteljorg Museum; Southwest Museum; Whitney Museum of Western Art; Institute of American Indian Arts Museum; United States Department of State; and scores of others.

References

External links

Artist's Site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Red Star, Kevin 1943 births Living people Native American painters Native American printmakers Crow tribe Montana State University alumni Montana State University Billings alumni Institute of American Indian Arts alumni Artists from Montana People from Lodge Grass, Montana Native American male artists