Aug. 23, 2023

This paid piece is sponsored by the University of South Dakota.

The University of South Dakota honors Oscar Howe’s legacy as an artist and mentor through a traveling exhibition being seen nationwide.

“Howe’s legacy reminds us of the tremendous power of inspiration and perseverance,” said Bruce Kelley, dean of the College of Fine Arts. “As his own artistry evolved, Howe challenged the notion that he had to fit a certain mold. He spent most of his life in small communities in South Dakota and yet proved to be a global force. His legacy lives on in both his art and his teachings, which continue to impact generations of students and artists.”

“Dakota Modern: The Art of Oscar Howe” takes viewers on a journey of more than 40 years of Oscar Howe’s career and development, from early conventional work he created while in high school in the 1930s through the emergence of Howe’s innovative and abstract approach to painting in the 1950s and 1960s.

This exhibition, developed in collaboration with the Portland Art Museum and curated by Kathleen Ash-Milby, curator of Native American art at PAM, introduces new generations to Howe, who is considered to be one of the 20th century’s most innovative Native American painters.

“Dakota Modern: The Art of Oscar Howe” has been on display across the country – from Portland to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in the nation’s capital. Now, it has traveled to Howe’s home state of South Dakota and is on display at the South Dakota Art Museum in Brookings through Sept. 17.

To truly understand and appreciate the craft of a man who catalyzed a movement among Native artists to express their individuality rather than conforming to an established style, it is important to appreciate the culture and tradition of the artist who wielded the brush.

The history

Born in 1915 at Joe Creek on the Crow Creek Reservation, Howe would come to be a renowned artist whose work would be seen around the globe by the time he turned 18.

Howe attended the Pierre Indian School before returning home to learn from his grandmother Shell Face. While there, he spent hours drawing and painting, using anything he could get his hands on as tools for his craft. His grandmother would share the history of their people, telling stories and legends of the generations before them.

In 1933, Howe left the Plains for New Mexico and attended the Santa Fe Indian School, where he joined the art program established by Dorothy Dunn. Though he could have taken his talents anywhere, Howe chose to return to his roots in South Dakota upon graduating in 1938.

Around this time, he joined the South Dakota Works Progress Administration and completed mural projects in Mitchell and Mobridge.

In 1942, Howe was drafted into the Army and would return from his time abroad with his wife, Adelheid Hample. The couple had one child, Inge Dawn.

Howe earned his bachelor’s degree from Dakota Wesleyan University and later received his MFA from the University of Oklahoma. In 1957, after teaching at Pierre High School for three years, he became an artist-in-residence and professor of art at the University of South Dakota.

Howe dedicated 23 years of his career to USD. He retired as emeritus professor of art in 1980, leaving behind a legacy that would influence generations of students for decades to come.

The artist exhibited works in New York, London and Paris while he was a student in the 1930s and later was represented by more than 50 solo shows. He was named artist laureate of the Middle Border in 1954 and artist laureate of South Dakota in 1960. He was also the first recipient of the South Dakota Governor’s Award for Creative Achievement in 1973.

Rituals rooted in family

When Inge Dawn Howe Maresh was a child, she thought everyone’s dad painted at night after they watched the news.

She grew up watching her father set up an art studio in each home they lived in. Sometimes it was a dedicated corner of a room; other times he and his wife sacrificed a bedroom as a studio and slept in the living room — all so he could have space to create.

“My father was a wonderful father,” Howe Maresh said. “He was gentle and kind; he taught by example. He loved his family very much.”

According to Howe Maresh, the family’s routine was comfortable and well structured. Her father would come home promptly at 5 p.m. when her mother had dinner prepared and on the table. They would eat together as a family, sharing stories about their days before her father would move to the living room to watch the news. After the news, it was time to paint.

“In preparation for his next piece, my father would draw a sketch of the story he wanted to tell with his painting,” Howe Maresh reflected. “He would study his paper before establishing three ‘esthetic points’ (beauty points) and connect them with lines (symbols of truth). This process is called ‘owa’ and means writing with a point-to-point movement.”

Howe incorporated Native American symbols into his works, and every element of his pieces was layered with deep meaning and intentionality that paid homage to his Dakota heritage.

“Dance of Double Woman,” 1971, Oscar Howe, © Howe LLC

Howe Maresh described the care he took into each color he mixed by hand and remembered a bathtub full of Fabriano paper that she would help him soak in preparation for his next piece. Howe emulated the process of painting on skins and visually represented the oral history of his people.

“He wished to stay close to traditional Dakota Indian painting (on skins) called the painting of the truth,” Howe Maresh said. “I think his art fulfilled his hope to represent the best of Dakota culture, and he was able to capture the spirituality of his people in very powerful ways and introduce it to modern cultures.”

“Kaska” (Trial by Riding a Wild Horse), Oscar Howe, © Howe LLC

One summer, Howe Maresh took a workshop from her father and witnessed his teachings firsthand.

“I think he touched all his students with inspiration for setting goals in your life and feeding your creative spirit,” she said. “He certainly respected individuality and positivity in life. He believed it was everyone’s responsibility to make the world a better place by connecting with and respecting your own culture so you can expand your horizons to value and appreciate other cultures.”

Paving the way for Native artists

Howe paved a path for Native artists, giving them expressive permission to own their talents, embrace their history and break down barriers that fought to keep them contained.

As a teacher, father, husband and artist, Howe’s approach was calm and unapologetic. He never underestimated the power of community or the value of integrity.

“I try to faithfully and truthfully bring out the true meaning of the fine and good things of the past Sioux culture,” Howe said in his 1958 letter to the Philbrook Art Center. “It is my greatest hope that my paintings may serve to bring the best of Indian culture to the modern way of life.”

Howe created paintings that could be appreciated for their basic aesthetic appeal, but he challenged viewers to consider something far more meaningful — to feel the movement of a ceremonial sun dance, watch dancers transcend a traditional powwow and witness traditions that are honored to this day.

Howe wove deeply rooted tradition and ceremony into the sharp lines of modernism. He intentionally used both the positive and negative space on the page, creating magic in noncontextual landscapes. This timeless appeal to his art invites viewers to think beyond the image of a reservation on the plains of South Dakota and see Native people, culture and tradition across all timelines in all corners of the world.

Howe’s influence in artistry expanded far beyond the legacy of his paintings. In addition to teaching on USD’s campus and serving as a faculty adviser for the Wapaha Club – the USD Native Student Club founded in 1957 – Howe began to offer summer art classes to high school students in 1960.

Primarily dedicated to Native Americans, the classes offered by Howe created an opportunity for students to visit a college campus, learn from a successful Native artist and be exposed to an educational experience they otherwise might not have received. The students were provided with a sense of community and connection that expanded beyond the borders of where they grew up.

Through the stroke of a brush, Howe brought their history to life — teaching about the past while honoring the present. He introduced students to a new opportunity, encouraging them to pave their own path in the world.

Decades later, students who had the benefit of being taught by Howe would carry on this tradition through the Oscar Howe Summer Art Institute, or OHSAI.

Leaving a legacy

“For all of our pride in Oscar Howe as a South Dakotan, we must acknowledge that he belongs to the world.” – John A. Day

While his paintings have graced the walls of museums around the globe, Howe was not driven by fame; rather, the humble, generous artist was motivated to encourage and support the generations that would follow.

In 1991, Robert Penn, a former student of Howe’s who experienced firsthand a life-changing education from Howe, joined forces with John A. Day to restart the OHSAI in honor of the late artist.

In the early years of the institute, funding was scarce, and at times, the faculty who led the programming weren’t paid. Later, with the help of transformative grant dollars, the institute was able to not only attract incredibly talented artists as teachers and lecturers but also welcome students from beyond the region.

Like Penn, many students who have attended the institute have found success and fame as artists and have come back years later to pay it forward, acting as student counselors, teachers and lecturers.

“The importance of Oscar Howe’s influence on Native American artists and arts programing cannot be understated,” said Cory Knedler, chair of the UDS art department and director of the OHSAI.

“Without Howe’s influence on Bobby Penn, there would be no Oscar Howe Summer Art Institute. Penn was Howe’s protege and understood the importance of a strong mentor and providing transference of knowledge from one generation to the next. Without the institute, there would be countless artists that would not have had the opportunity to meet the mentors that changed their lives and encouraged them to pursue an art career. We continue to see this today as students who went through the early OHSAI are now back as instructors, continuing to transfer what they learned to the next generation of young artists.”

To learn more about the traveling exhibition, click here.

More than two decades ago, when Tetsuya Ishida was still a young emerging artist in Japan, he was already dreaming big. He had his eyes set on New York, wishing that he would one day have his solo exhibition in the center of the contemporary art world. He was preparing himself, saving money from a part-time job and learning English when he was not painting.

Ishida’s dream, however, did not materialize prior to his untimely death in 2005 at the age of 31 due to a train accident. But that was not the end of his story: This fall, the late Japanese artist’s wish will come true next month when Gagosian opens “Tetsuya Ishida: My Anxious Self” at its 555 West 24th Street space in New York on September 12.

Featuring more than 80 works, the exhibition, curated by Cecilia Alemani, is set to be the artist’s largest show outside of his native Japan. The gallery is also now representing Ishida globally in association with the artist’s estate, Artnet News can exclusively reveal.

Tetsuya Ishida, Exercise Equipment (1997). © Tetsuya Ishida Estate. Photo: Rob McKeever. Courtesy Gagosian.

“In getting to know the family over the past several years, we learned that an exhibition in New York was Tetsuya’s greatest artistic ambition, and we are incredibly honored to present his paintings in New York on the 50th anniversary of his birth,” Nick Simunovic, senior director of Gagosian in Asia, told Artnet News.

Born in Yaizu, Japan, in 1973, Ishida grew up as part of the country’s “lost generation,” a term referring to those who graduated during the 1990s and 2000s in a period of recession. During his short-lived artist career, Ishida created about 200 works. The sentiment of loss and despair experienced among this generation during a decade marred by high unemployment and high suicide rates can be felt in Ishida’s poignant paintings and graphic works.

Often meticulously detailed, Ishida’s paintings depict expressionless or sad faces of young men, their human bodies merged with objects surrounding them, including plastic bags, airplanes, buildings, broken satellites, machine parts, and animals like crabs and seahorses. At times, his human figures appear nearly lifeless in his paintings, lying on a conveyor belt or arriving as packaged goods.

Critics in Japan relate Ishida’s work with the country’s dominating manga and anime culture, but at the same time, this “convergence” with objects can also be understood as a visualization of the psychological survival mechanism needed during a repressive time.

“At first, it was a self-portrait. I tried to make myself—my weak self, my pitiful self, my anxious self—into a joke or something funny that could be laughed at… It was sometimes seen as a parody or satire referring to contemporary people. As I continued to think about this, I expanded it to include consumers, city-dwellers, workers, and the Japanese people,” the artist was quoted in a statement.

Ishida’s works were exhibited and collected in some parts of Asia but they did not get to travel beyond the region until November 2013, when Gagosian held a solo exhibition of the artist at its Hong Kong space, the artist’s first outside of Japan.

Tetsuya Ishida c. 1995 © Tetsuya Ishida Estate. Courtesy the artist and Gagosian

Recalling the organization of the exhibition, Simunovic, who was leading the gallery’s Hong Kong operation at the time, was first introduced to the artist’s enigmatic paintings through a Hong Kong collector more than 12 years ago. “I was immediately taken with the work and showed it to Larry [Gagosian], who was equally captivated,” Simunovic said. “We both agreed that it would be interesting to present an exhibition and, as we didn’t know the family at the time, we began making plans to mount a show of work from the secondary market. We secured great loans from collectors across Asia.”

The 2013 Hong Kong exhibition became a turning point for Ishida’s art. Jessica Morgan, a curator at the Tate at the time, saw the show and subsequently included the artist in the 2014 edition of Gwangju Biennale, when she served as its artistic director. “Okwui Enwezor, who was on the Gwangju jury at the time, was fascinated by Ishida and the power of his work, and, in turn, featured the artist in his exhibition for the 56th Venice Biennale in 2015,” Simunovic noted. And then, Reina Sofia’s curatorial team saw the Venice show and subsequently offered Ishida’s family a solo show at the museum in Madrid in 2019.

In between, the artist’s relatives became aware of the growing reputation of his work and reached out to Simunovic. “We slowly began building a relationship and we were given works for sale, which we placed in esteemed collections around the world,” he said.

Tetsuya Ishida, Refuel Meal (1996) © Tetsuya Ishida Estate. Courtesy the artist, Shizuoka Prefectural Museum of Art, and Gagosian.

The gallery and the artist’s family were initially working on a show in New York, which was stalled due to the Covid-19 lockdowns. “We believe in his work and feel it’s extremely important that it be seen and understood in the West,” Simunovic said. The 80 works to be featured in the New York show represent nearly half of Ishida’s entire body of work. Some of them are on loan from the collection of the Shizuoka Prefectural Museum of Art, which is located in the artist’s home town in Japan, as well as other private collections. Others are from the estate and will be available for sale, but Simunovic declined to reveal exactly how many works and the price range.

Simunovic is confident the show will resonate with an audience in the West. Ishida’s art, which addresses the themes of disconnection, alienation, and despair, are universal and highly relevant to the current times, he added.

“We live in a pluralistic art world where there are countless western collectors who enjoy collecting Asian contemporary art, just as there are countless Asian collectors who are avidly collecting western contemporary art,” he said.

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