Spencer Asah, Asah Dancing
Spencer Asah
1906-1954
Kiowa
Date
1979
Medium Specific
Six-color Lithograph
Edition / State
Plate 8, Portfolio 128/750
Publisher
Bell Editions, Inc., Santa Fe, NM
Classification
Print
Dimensions
15 x 11 in. (38.1 x 27.9 cm)
Accession Number
2021.10.20.13
Memo / Artist Statement
From the portfolio "Kiowa Indian Art: Watercolor Paintings in Color by the Indians of Oklahoma", featuring 30 prints by a group of artists known as the Kiowa Five.The original portfolio was published by l'Edition d'Art, C. Szwedzicki in 1929 with Pochoir prints. The 1979 edition was published by Bell Editions, Inc. as lithograph reproductions that were created from #89/750 of the original 1929 edition. It also includes an introduction by Jamake Highwater, who also signed and numbered the booklet.
Biography
Born near Carnegie, Oklahoma, circa 1906, Spencer Asah (Lallo, Little Boy) was a grandson of a well-known Buffalo Medicine man. He grew up in the western Oklahoma environment filled with Kiowa ritual and traditional history. He was married to a Comanche, Ida, and had three children, Ola Mae, Ida L., and Kay, a son killed in 1953. One of the famous early-twentieth-century Indian painters from Oklahoma, he used themes and images to present the culture of Kiowa dancers and images of Kiowa life.
According to Oscar Jacobson, his mentor, his role as a descendant of distinguished medicine people was as custodian to important ceremonial items, including a Kiowa calendar. Asah attended St. Patrick's Indian Mission School near Anadarko, Oklahoma, where he showed talent as an artist and a love of traditional Kiowa dancing. With four other artists, he later attended painting classes at the University of Oklahoma under the direction of Edith Mayer and Oscar Jacobson. The Kiowa Five included six artists: Spencer Asah, James Auchiah, Jack Hokeah, Stephen Mopope, Lois Smoky, and Monroe Tsatoke. In 1926 Asah, Hokeah, Tsatoke, Mopope, and Smoky moved to Norman, Oklahoma and began their art studies at OU. Smoky returned home late in 1927, but Auchiah joined the group that year.
As an artist, Asah is best remembered for his paintings of Kiowa culture, including his murals at the Oklahoma Supreme Court Building, the Federal Building at Anadarko, and Fort Sill Indian School. However, smaller-scale, flat-style, two-dimensional works on paper are most typical of his oeuvre. In these ceremonial scenes, Asah accurately captured the detail, color and movement of dances and rituals.
In the 1928, the Kiowa Five debuted in the international fine arts world by participating in the First International Art Exposition in Prague, Czechoslovakia. Dr. Jacobson arranged for their work to be shown in several other countries and for Kiowa Art, a portfolio of pochoir prints artists' paintings to be published in France.
https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=AS002
Janet Berlo, "The Szwedzicki Portfolios of American Indian Art, 1929-1952: Kiowa Indian Art, Pueblo Indian Painting & Pueblo Indian Pottery", American Indian Art Magazine, Spring, 2009: 36-45.
Julia Harth, "Spencer Asah", in Kiowa Agency: Stories of the Six, Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, University of Oklahoma, 2020: p4-7.
According to Oscar Jacobson, his mentor, his role as a descendant of distinguished medicine people was as custodian to important ceremonial items, including a Kiowa calendar. Asah attended St. Patrick's Indian Mission School near Anadarko, Oklahoma, where he showed talent as an artist and a love of traditional Kiowa dancing. With four other artists, he later attended painting classes at the University of Oklahoma under the direction of Edith Mayer and Oscar Jacobson. The Kiowa Five included six artists: Spencer Asah, James Auchiah, Jack Hokeah, Stephen Mopope, Lois Smoky, and Monroe Tsatoke. In 1926 Asah, Hokeah, Tsatoke, Mopope, and Smoky moved to Norman, Oklahoma and began their art studies at OU. Smoky returned home late in 1927, but Auchiah joined the group that year.
As an artist, Asah is best remembered for his paintings of Kiowa culture, including his murals at the Oklahoma Supreme Court Building, the Federal Building at Anadarko, and Fort Sill Indian School. However, smaller-scale, flat-style, two-dimensional works on paper are most typical of his oeuvre. In these ceremonial scenes, Asah accurately captured the detail, color and movement of dances and rituals.
In the 1928, the Kiowa Five debuted in the international fine arts world by participating in the First International Art Exposition in Prague, Czechoslovakia. Dr. Jacobson arranged for their work to be shown in several other countries and for Kiowa Art, a portfolio of pochoir prints artists' paintings to be published in France.
https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=AS002
Janet Berlo, "The Szwedzicki Portfolios of American Indian Art, 1929-1952: Kiowa Indian Art, Pueblo Indian Painting & Pueblo Indian Pottery", American Indian Art Magazine, Spring, 2009: 36-45.
Julia Harth, "Spencer Asah", in Kiowa Agency: Stories of the Six, Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, University of Oklahoma, 2020: p4-7.
Date of Bio