Richard Aitson | |
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 Richard Aitson, 2008 | |
| Born | Buffalo Rider December 26, 1953 Anadarko, Oklahoma, U.S. |
| Died | June 24, 2022 |
| Education | Kimball Union Academy, Oberlin College, Institute of American Indian Arts |
| Known for | Beadwork, poetry |
| Movement | Kiowa art |
| Awards | Red Earth Festival Grand Award, Jackie Autry Purchase Prize |
Richard Aitson (December 26, 1953- June 24, 2022) was a Kiowa-Kiowa Apache bead artist, curator, and poet from Oklahoma.
Richard Aitson was born on December 26, 1953, in Anadarko, Oklahoma. [1] [2] His mother was the Kiowa traditionalist Alecia Keahbone Gonzales (1926–2011), who taught the Kiowa language at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma. Aitson's Kiowa name means "Buffalo Rider." His family has had many artistic accomplishments and he comes five generations of respected beadworkers. [3] Aitson attended the Kimball Union Academy in Meriden, New Hampshire; Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio; and the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. [4]
In 1976, Aitson produced documentaries for the Bicentennial Commission about Native American events. He worked at the Squash Blossom Gallery in Aspen, Colorado, in 1979, which is where he first curated art shows. He has since curated many group shows, including "Winter Camp 2000" at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City. He taught Native American literature at Anadarko High School and also taught at Bacone College as an adjunct professor of art. [5]
Aitson jumped into beadworking out of necessity. He was invited to join the prestigious Kiowa Gourd Clan and had to learn beading to create his gourd dance regalia. [4] Aitson describes his art as "contemporary-traditional" [3] and he creates beaded dance regalia for the Native American community as well as bead art for fine art collectors and museums.
He is known in particular for his fully beaded, functional cradleboards, but he also makes miniature cradleboards with extremely minute beads. [6] "I am touched by the art of the World War years and the Reservation Era because in my opinion, that is when the finest Kiowa beadwork was produced," he writes. "Quality beads and supplies were extremely scarce, yet remarkable and ingenious beadwork that bridged the ancient and the future was quietly created." [7]
Aitson writes poems inspired by traditional Kiowa oral history. His work, as Alan Velie writes, "combines the dream vision with animism to produce striking powerful imagery. He is inspired by Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. [1]
In 1992, Aitson had a solo exhibition at the US Department of Interior's Southern Plains Indian Museum in Anadarko. [2] His work has earned numerous awards, including the Red Earth Festival's Grand Award in 1997 [8] and the Southwest Museum's Jackie Autry Purchase Prize in 2005. [9] Many examples of his work are part of the permanent collection at the Sequoyah National Research Center in Little Rock, Arkansas.
Kiowa or CáuigúIPA:[kɔ́j-gʷú]) people are a Native American tribe and an Indigenous people of the Great Plains of the United States. They migrated southward from western Montana into the Rocky Mountains in Colorado in the 17th and 18th centuries, and eventually into the Southern Plains by the early 19th century. In 1867, the Kiowa were moved to a reservation in southwestern Oklahoma.
Tommy Wayne Cannon was an important Native American artist of the 20th century. He was popularly known as T. C. Cannon. He was an enrolled member of the Kiowa Indian Tribe of Oklahoma and had Caddo and French ancestry.
A hair drop is an ornament worn by men from Great Lakes and Plains tribes. It would be tied to the man's hair. The typical example consists of a quilled or beaded section on a strip of leather, which was later attached to an American buffalo tail. They could be over two feet long.
The Kiowa Six, previously known as the Kiowa Five, is a group of six Kiowa artists from Oklahoma in the early 20th century, working in the "Kiowa style". The artists were Spencer Asah, James Auchiah, Jack Hokeah, Stephen Mopope, Monroe Tsatoke and Lois Smoky.
Teri Greeves is a Native American beadwork artist, living in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She is enrolled in the Kiowa Indian Tribe of Oklahoma.
Silver Horn or Haungooah was a Kiowa ledger artist.
Spencer Asah was a Kiowa painter and a member of the Kiowa Six from Oklahoma.
Jack Hokeah was a Kiowa painter, one of the Kiowa Six, from Oklahoma.
Monroe Tsatoke (1904–1937) was a Kiowa painter and a member of the Kiowa Six from Oklahoma.
Stephen Mopope (1898–1974) was a Kiowa painter, dancer, and Native American flute player from Oklahoma. He was the most prolific member of the group of artists known as the Kiowa Six.
Lois Smoky Kaulaity (1907–1981) was a Kiowa beadwork artist and a painter, one of the Kiowa Six, from Oklahoma.
Vanessa Paukeigope Santos Jennings is a Kiowa/Kiowa Apache/Gila River Pima regalia maker, clothing designer, cradleboard maker, and beadwork artist from Oklahoma.
Marcelle Sharron Ahtone Harjo is a Kiowa painter from Oklahoma. Her Kiowa name, Sain-Tah-Oodie, translates to "Killed With a Blunted Arrow." In the 1960s and 1970s, she and sister Virginia Stroud were instrumental in the revival of ledger art, a Plains Indian narrative pictorial style on paper or muslin.
Sherman Terrance Chaddlesone was a Kiowa Indian painter from Anadarko, Oklahoma, who played a pivotal role in late 20th century Native American art.
David Emmett Williams was a Native American painter, who was Kiowa/Tonkawa/Kiowa-Apache from Oklahoma. He studied with Dick West at Bacone College and won numerous national awards for his paintings. He painted in the Flatstyle technique that was taught at Bacone from the 1940s to the 1970s.
Jeri Ah-be-hill was a Kiowa fashion expert and art dealer. She owned and operated a trading post on the Wind River Indian Reservation for more than twenty years before moving to Santa Fe, New Mexico where she became the curator of the annual Native American Clothing Contest held at the Santa Fe Indian Market. She also worked as a docent at both the Institute of American Indian Arts and the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian. Considered an expert on Native American fashion, she traveled nationally presenting educational information about tribal clothing.
TahneeAhtoneharjo-Growingthunder, is a Kiowa beadwork artist, regalia maker, curator, and museum professional of Muscogee and Seminole descent, from Mountain View, Oklahoma.
Alice Littleman was a Kiowa beadwork artist and regalia maker, who during her lifetime was recognized as one of the leading Kiowa beaders and buckskin dressmakers. Her works are included in the permanent collections of the National Museum of Natural History, the National Museum of the American Indian, the Southern Plains Indian Museum, and the Oklahoma Historical Society.
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