Sharron Ahtone Harjo | |
---|---|
Born | Marcelle Sharron Ahtone [1] January 6, 1945 [2] |
Citizenship | Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma and United States |
Education | Bacone College |
Known for | painting, ledger art |
Movement | ledger art, Bacone school |
Elected | Miss Indian America (1968) [3] |
Marcelle Sharron Ahtone Harjo (born 1945) is a Kiowa painter from Oklahoma. [1] Her Kiowa name, Sain-Tah-Oodie, translates to "Killed With a Blunted Arrow." [2] 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. [4]
Sharron Ahtone Harjo's parents were Evelyn Tahome and Jacob Ahtone. Evelyn's parents were A. Jane Goombi and Stephen "Tahome" Poolant. Jacob served as Kiowa Tribal chairman from 1978 to 1980. Jacob's parents were Tahdo (Tah'ga-da) and Samuel Ahtone. [2] Samuel attended the Hampton Institute in Virginia and the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania. Samuel was a ledger artist. [4]
Her great-grandmother, Millie Durgan, was taken captive by the Kiowas as a young girl. Durgan acculturated into Kiowa society and became a renowned cradleboard-maker. [5]
In 1963, Ahtone Harjo graduated from Billings West High School in Billings, Montana. [2] She studied art under Southern Cheyenne artist Dick West at Bacone College in Muskogee, Oklahoma, from 1963 to 1965. [6] In 1965, she earned her AA from Bacone and earned her BA from Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. [2]
In 1965, Ahtone Harjo was chosen as Miss Indian America. [3]
Sharron Ahtone Harjo paints in acrylic, oil, gouache, and watercolor. [2] Her early work used rock art and Plains hide painting as influences before she began to work in the ledger art style. [7] In the 1970s, Ahtone began showing her work professionally. Due to the lack of acceptance for women artists in her area and nationally, she exhibited under the name Ahtone Harjo. [4] She later taught art in schools. [3]
Ahtone Harjo views Kiowa Sun Dance as one of her most important works because of her use of primary sources such as calendars, ledger drawings, and interviews with community members to complete the work. This painting is one of the only historical records of the annual ceremonial Sun Dance in which the entire tribe participated. The dance has not been performed since 1887. The painting took her several years to complete. [8]
Ahtone Harjo primarily lives in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, although she also stays in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and is from the Zoltone District 2 of the Kiowa tribal nation. Her sister is Deborah Ahtone, a Kiowa visual artist and writer. Sharron is married to Amos Harjo (Seminole/Muscogee). Their daughter Tahnee Ahtoneharjo-Growingthunder is a beadwork and textile artist, and curator. [2]
Sharron Ahtone Harjo's work can be found in the following public collections.
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.
The Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) is a public tribal land-grant college in Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States. The college focuses on Native American art. It operates the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (MoCNA), which is housed in the historic Santa Fe Federal Building, a landmark Pueblo Revival building listed on the National Register of Historic Places as Federal Building. The museum houses the National Collection of Contemporary Indian Art, with more than 7,000 items.
Bacone College, formerly Bacone Indian University, is a private college in Muskogee, Oklahoma. Founded in 1880 as the Indian University by missionary Almon C. Bacone, it was originally affiliated with the mission arm of what is now American Baptist Churches USA. Renamed as Bacone College in the early 20th century, it is the oldest continuously operated institution of higher education in Oklahoma. The liberal arts college has had strong historic ties to several tribal nations, including the Muscogee and Cherokee. The Bacone College Historic District has been on the National Register of Historic Places listings in Muskogee County, Oklahoma since 2014.
Harjo is a surname, derived from the Muscogee word Hadcho meaning "Crazy" or "So Brave as to Seem crazy".
Ledger art is narrative drawing or painting on paper or cloth, predominantly practiced by Plains Indian, but also from the Plateau and Great Basin. Ledger art flourished primarily from the 1860s to the 1920s. A revival of ledger art began in the 1960s and 1970s. The term comes from the accounting ledger books that were a common source of paper for Plains Indians during the late 19th century.
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.
Walter Richard West Sr., was a painter, sculptor, and educator. He led the Art Department at Bacone College from 1947 to 1970. He later taught at Haskell Institute for several years. West was an enrolled citizen of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes.
The Bacone school or Bacone style of painting, drawing, and printmaking is a Native American intertribal "Flatstyle" art movement, primarily from the mid-20th century in Eastern Oklahoma and named for Bacone College. This art movement bridges historical, tribally-specific pictorial painting and carving practices towards an intertribal Modernist style of easel painting. This style is also influenced by the art programs of Chilocco Indian School, north of Ponca City, Oklahoma, and Haskell Indian Industrial Training Institute, in Lawrence, Kansas and features a mix of Southeastern, Prairie, and Central Plains tribes.
Richard Aitson was a Kiowa-Kiowa Apache bead artist, curator, and poet from Oklahoma.
Virginia Alice Stroud is a Cherokee-Muscogee Creek painter from Oklahoma. She is an enrolled citizen of the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians.
Ruthe Blalock Jones is a Delaware-Shawnee-Peoria painter and printmaker from Oklahoma.
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.
Southern Plains Indian Museum is a Native American museum located in Anadarko, Oklahoma. It was opened in 1948 under a cooperative governing effort by the United States Department of the Interior and the Oklahoma state government. The museum features cultural and artistic works from Oklahoma tribal peoples of the Southern Plains region, including the Caddo, Chiricahua Apache, Comanche, Delaware Nation, Kiowa, Plains Apache, Southern Arapaho, Southern Cheyenne, and Wichita.
TahneeAhtoneharjo-Growingthunder, is a Kiowa beadwork artist, regalia maker, curator, and museum professional of Muscogee and Seminole descent, from Mountain View, Oklahoma.
Valjean McCarty Hessing was a Choctaw painter, who worked in the Bacone flatstyle. Throughout her career, she won 9- awards for her work and was designated a Master Artist by the Five Civilized Tribes Museum in 1976. Her artworks are in collections of the Heard Museum of Phoenix, Arizona; the Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa, Oklahoma; the Southern Plains Indian Museum in Anadarko, Oklahoma; and the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian of Santa Fe, New Mexico, among others.
Mary Adair is a Cherokee Nation educator and painter based in Oklahoma.
Jane McCarty Mauldin was a Choctaw artist, who simultaneously worked in commercial and fine art exhibiting from 1963 through 1997. Over the course of her career, she won more than 100 awards for her works and was designated as a "Master Artist" by the Five Civilized Tribes Museum in Muskogee, Oklahoma. She has works in the permanent collections of the Heard Museum, the Heritage Center of the Red Cloud Indian School and the collections of the Department of the Interior, as well as various private collections.
The Center of the American Indian (CAI) was an intertribal, Native American-led museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. It was housed in the second floor of the Kirkpatrick Center.