Allan Houser

Allan Houser was born June 30, 1914 into the Warm Springs band of the Chiricahua Apache tribe in Oklahoma. After studying at The Studio School at the Santa Fe Indian School for four years he exhibited in major venues such as the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., the Art Institute of Chicago, the World’s Fair, and the Golden Gate Exposition. During the second world war he worked at a refinery in Los Angeles, learning about Western art, but did not stay in the area. His first time working in sculpture began fourteen years after painting through a commission for a stone war memorial. Self-taught, he used the book Sculpture Inside and Out to learn the sculpture medium. He received awards and commissions following the memorial. Houser taught at Intermountain Indian School in Utah for ten years, before starting the sculpture program at the new Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Post-retirement, Houser journeyed full-force into creating sculpture.