Artist

Allan Houser

born Apache, OK 1914-died Santa Fe, NM 1994
Also known as
  • Allan C. Houser
  • Allan Haozous
Born
Apache, Oklahoma, United States
Died
Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States
Active in
  • California, United States
Biography

Of Chiracahua Apache and English descent, Allan Houser (originally Hauzous) grew up in a world of farming and ranching, rich with the Apache heritage of his people as taught through the songs and stories of his father. Encouraged by his father to obtain a formal education, Houser studied art, specifically painting, at the Santa Fe Indian Art School with Dorothy Dunn.

His paintings, which were infused with his Native American background, earned him national recognition. In 1939 Houser produced murals for the Department of the Interior in Washington, D.C., the Golden Gate Exposition in San Francisco, and the New York World's Fair, which led to his work as a WPA muralist. He soon after began working in the sculptural medium, following the suggestion of his muralist mentor, Olle Nordmark. His first public sculptural work was a 1948 commission from the Haskell Institute in Lawrence, Kansas.

From the early 1950s until his retirement from academic life in 1975, Houser taught at various institutions in the Southwest; his first solo exhibition was presented at the Heard Museum in Phoenix, Arizona. Over the years his work has progressed from wood to stone, from a naturalistic approach to simplified, monumental forms, all the while maintaining figural expressions of Native American ideals.

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)

Works by this artist (14 items)

Nellie Mae Rowe, At the Art Gallery, 1979, crayon and felt tip on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment and the American Women's History Initiative Acquisitions Pool, administered by the Smithsonian American Women's History Initiative, 2021.29.10
At the Art Gallery
Date1979
crayon and felt tip on paper
Not on view
Nellie Mae Rowe, Untitled (Four-Leaf Clover and Little Zebra), 1980, marker on silver gelatin print, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment and the American Women's History Initiative Acquisitions Pool, administered by the Smithsonian American Women's History Initiative, 2021.29.6
Untitled (Four-Leaf Clover and Little Zebra)
Date1980
marker on silver gelatin print
Not on view
Nellie Mae Rowe, Church Lady in Pants Suit, 1980, crayon and pencil on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment and the American Women's History Initiative Acquisitions Pool, administered by the Smithsonian American Women's History Initiative, 2021.29.9
Church Lady in Pants Suit
Date1980
crayon and pencil on paper
Not on view
Nellie Mae Rowe, Untitled (Landscape with Black Girl), ca. 1980, crayon on paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Chuck and Jan Rosenak and museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment, 1997.124.131
Untitled (Landscape with Black Girl)
Dateca. 1980
crayon on paper
Not on view

Exhibitions

Media - 1985.66.404 - SAAM-1985.66.404_1 - 9039
Picturing the American Buffalo: George Catlin and Modern Native American Artists
October 11, 2019March 13, 2020
Picturing the American Buffalo: George Catlin and Modern Native American Artists examines representations of buffalo and their integration into the lives of Native Americans on the Great Plains in the 1830s and in the twentieth century.