Celebrate American Indian Heritage Month

Allan Houser, a member of the Chiricahua Apaches was the first Native American to receive the country's highest art award, the National Medal of Arts.

Internationally acclaimed, Houser's work can be seen at the United Nations in New York City, the British Royal Collection, the White House, and in countless private, corporate, and museum collections.

In carving Buffalo Dance, shown here, Houser created the illusion of physical space by establishing a frame on whose left edge are two dancers wearing buffalo fur and horn headdresses and carrying gourd rattles and a lightning stick, and on the right edge, are two singers holding drumsticks. Between these framing devices, Houser carved a low-relief backdrop of softly delineated figures of adults and children. This composition places the viewer with the dancers and singers at the heart of the ceremony, looking out to the spectators encircling the action.

Source: National Museum of American Art (CD-ROM) (New York and Washington D.C.: MacMillan Digital in cooperation with the National Museum of American Art, 1996).

Pictured: Allan Houser, 1914–94, Buffalo Dance, 1983, Indiana limestone, 13 3/4 x 60 x 14 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Alice Rossin Colquitt Fund, Frank E. Everett, and the Smithsonian Institution Collections Acquisition Program.