Arthur Amiotte

{{Infobox artist

| name = Arthur Douglas Amiotte

| image = Arthur Amiotte, 1965.jpg

| image_size =

| alt =

| caption = Arthur Amiotte, 1965.jpg

| birth_name = Wanblí Ta Hócoka Washté

| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1942|03|25}}

| birth_place = Pine Ridge, South Dakota

| death_date =

| death_place =

| nationality = Oglala Lakota, American

| known_for = collage, printmaking, painting

| training = BA Northern State University

| movement =

| notable_works =

| patrons =

| awards = Bush Leadership Fellow, South Dakota Governor’s Award for Outstanding Creative Achievement in Arts{{cite web |title=Arthur Amiotte |url=https://www.sdstate.edu/south-dakota-art-museum/2002-50-works-50-years |website=2002: 50 Works for 50 Years |publisher=South Dakota Art Museum |access-date=11 October 2023}}

| elected =

| website =

}}

Arthur Douglas Amiotte (Waŋblí Ta Hóčhoka Wašté or Good Eagle Center) (born 1942) is an Oglala Lakota Native American painter, collage artist, educator, and author.Lester, 14

Biography

Arthur Amiotte was born on March 25, 1942, in Pine Ridge, South Dakota, on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.{{cite web |title=Arthur Amiotte |url=https://www.sdstate.edu/south-dakota-art-museum/2002-50-works-50-years |website=2002: 50 Works for 50 Years |publisher=South Dakota Art Museum |access-date=11 October 2023}} He was given the name Warpa Tanka Kuciyela or Low Black Bird as an infant, but received his second Lakota name in 1972. Amiotte's parents are Walter Douglas Amiotte and Olive Louise Mesteth. One of his aunts is Lakota artist Emma E. Amiotte.{{Cite web |title=1998: 50 Works for 50 Years |url=https://www.sdstate.edu/south-dakota-art-museum/1998-50-works-50-years |access-date=2022-08-01 |website=South Dakota State University |language=en}} His great-grandfather Standing Bear (1859–1933) was at the Battle of Little Big Horn. Amiotte lived in the reservation until he was six and then visited it during summers up to the age of 15.{{cite web |last=Indyke |first=Dottie |title=Native Arts {{!}} Arthur Amiotte |url=https://www.southwestart.com/articles-interviews/featured-artists/native_arts |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241226054344/https://www.southwestart.com/articles-interviews/featured-artists/native_arts |archive-date=2024-12-26 |website=Southwest Art}}

During his studies at Northern State University in Aberdeen, South Dakota, Amiotte attended a workshop from Oscar Howe in 1961. From this encounter, Amiotte got a concrete example of how a native artist can be a contemporary artist.{{cite news|url=http://www.blackhillsnewsbureau.com/news-stories/article/37-arthur-amiotte-to-provide-program-at-crazy-horse-memorial-on-august-14th.html |title=Arthur Amiotte to provide program at Crazy Horse Memorial on August 14th |date=8 July 2008 |first1=Donovin |last1=Sprague |journal=Black Hills News Bureau |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20100316133339/http://blackhillsnewsbureau.com/news-stories/article/37-arthur-amiotte-to-provide-program-at-crazy-horse-memorial-on-august-14th.html |archivedate=16 March 2010 }} Amiotte received his bachelor's degree in Art and Art Education and was subsequently a teacher at Woodrow Wilson Junior High School in Sioux City from 1964 to 1966.{{cite news |url=http://www.siouxcityjournal.com/lifestyles/local/article_9289efeb-5adc-50d2-89bd-90194c399c73.html |title=Oglala Lakota artist Arthur Amiotte to present at Encounter Center |journal=Sioux City Journal |date=15 November 2009}}

Two mentors, in particular, guided Amiotte. From 1969 to 1975, his grandmother Christina Standing Bear, a sacred bundle keeper, taught him the heritage of his great-grandfather Standing Bear (Mató Nájin), who illustrated Black Elk Speaks. From 1972 to 1981, Amiotte was influenced by the Lakota medicine man Pete Catches (Oglala Lakota), who introduced Amiotte to Lakota spirituality and rituals belonging to Lakota traditions.Bates, 96

He received his Masters of Interdisciplinary Studies in 1983 from the University of Montana-Missoula.

Amiotte was professor of Native American art history at Brandon University, Manitoba, but in 1985, he decided to dedicate himself to art and he established his studio in Custer, South Dakota, in 1986.

Amiotte curated exhibitions about the culture of the tribes on the Great Plains, such as at the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian in Santa Fe, New Mexico; the Akta Lakota Museum in Chamberlain, South Dakota; the Buffalo Bill Historical Center of Cody, Wyoming; and the Museum of World Cultures of Frankfurt am Main, Germany, in 2006. In 2004, Arthur Amiotte lectured an Oscar Howe Memorial Lecture[http://oscarhowe.org/memorial.php Oscar Howe Memorial Lecture]

Works

= Main exhibitions and artworks =

Lakota philosophy and oral history form the foundation of Amiotte's artistic work. His creativity as a whole is an expression of the Lakól wicóh'an washtélaka – the love of the Lakota traditions. Amiotte promotes Lakota rituals and the visionary experiences during the traditional ceremonies also find their impact on his artistic work.

Amiotte defines his work as being bound to the reservation culture which bridges the gap between yesterday and today, a split which is often mastered in an amazing manner. Amiotte has said, "I realized that contemporary art was ignoring the whole reservation period. This had been a dynamic time. Some people were going to school in the east, to Carlisle and Hampton... People were moving onto land allotments. They were familiar with print media, exposed to lots of magazines, pictures, photographs... Daily life was infused with this mixture of nonliterate/literate. There were new technologies... it seemed to me that it was more honest to deal with all this in my art, rather than to create a fake hide painting."Berlo, Janet Catherine. Spirit Beings and Sun Dancers – Black Hawk's Vision of the Lakota World. P. 153

His collage work is inspired by Ledger art but takes it to a new level. In a pointed and sharp-witted manner, they reveal the discrepancy of Lakota culture between tradition and modernism ("The Visit," 1995, Acrylic-Collage; Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Wyoming). He also explores experiences of Lakota people in Europe, during the Wild West show era of the early 20th century.

Amiotte has participated in over 100 exhibitions, including over 20 solo exhibitions.McFadden and Taubman, 241 He has shown throughout the United States and Europe, including at the Kunsthallen Bradts Klaedefabrik in Odense, Denmark in 1994 and 1995.

His work, ranging from painting to sculpture and textile objects, is present in 26 public and about 200 private collections. His work is included in such public collections as the Denver Art Museum, the Sequoyah National Research Center in Little Rock, Arkansas, the National Museum of Natural History, as well as the following institutions.

;The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, The Ethel Morrison Van Derlip Fund

Prince Albert, 1989, Collage and acrylic on canvas[http://www.artsmia.org/viewer/detail.php?v=12&id=4040 Prince Albert, 1989] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120404031443/http://www.artsmia.org/viewer/detail.php?v=12&id=4040# |date=2012-04-04 }} at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts
1913 Spring/Summer 1913- Giving Away His Suit, 1990[http://www.artsmia.org/viewer/detail.php?v=12&id=4313 1913 Spring/Summer 1913-Giving Away His Suit, 1990] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120404031522/http://www.artsmia.org/viewer/detail.php?v=12&id=4313# |date=2012-04-04 }} at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts

;Joslyn Art Museum:

New Horse Power in 1913, 1994, acrylic and collage on canvas{{Cite journal |date=2006 |title=2006 Annual Report |url=https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/21610196/joslyn-art-museums-2006-annual-report |journal=Joslyn Art Museum |via=Yumpu}}

;Hood Museum of Art

"Saint Agnes" Manderson, S.D. Pine Ridge Rez, 2001, Acrylic and collage on canvas, Purchased through the Phyllis and Bertram Geller 1937 Memorial Fund[http://hoodmuseum.dartmouth.edu/collections/overview/americas/northamerica/nativepost/contemporary/MIS200436.html "Saint Agnes" Manderson, S.D. Pine Ridge Rez, 2001] at the Hood Museum of Art

;Whitney Gallery of Western Art

The Visitors from Oklahoma, 1996, Collage and acrylic[http://www.bbhc.org/collections/bbhc/WG_ObjectPage.cfm?museum=WG&VarObjectKey=24097 The Visitors from Oklahoma, 1996] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090926193622/http://www.bbhc.org/collections/bbhc/WG_ObjectPage.cfm?museum=WG&VarObjectKey=24097 |date=September 26, 2009 }} at Whitney Gallery of Western Art

= Publications and lectures =

He frequently lectures at home and abroad and is a published author. In 1989 Amiotte wrote with a chapter about Sioux Arts in the important volume, Illustrated History of the Arts in South Dakota, published during the state's centennial.

{{cite book|last1=Amiotte |first1=Arthur |title=The Lakota Sun Dance - Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, in: Sioux Indian Religion |publisher=Raymond J. DeMaillie/Douglas R. Parks, Norman |year=1987}}
{{cite book|last1=Amiotte |first1=Arthur |title= Eagles Fly Over, sowie: Our Other Selves, in: I Become Part of It - Sacred Dimensions in Native American Life|publisher= D.M. Dooling/Paul Jordan-Smith |place= New York |year=1989}}
{{cite book|last1=Amiotte|first1=Arthur|last2=Runnels|first2=Vic|title=Art and Indian Children of the Dakotas, Book Five - An Introduction to Art and Other Ideas|publisher=Washington/BIA Aberdeen S.D., o.J.}}
Indian Arts and Crafts Board of the U.S. Department of the Interior, Photographs and Poems by Sioux Children, from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, South Dakota, selected by Myles Libhart and Arthur Amiotte, with an essay by Arthur Amiotte, Rapid City 1971.

Honors

From 1979 to 1981, Amiotte served on the Presidential Advisory Council for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. In 1980, he was awarded the South Dakota Governor's Award for Outstanding Creative Achievement in Arts. That same year, Amiotte was awarded the Bush Leadership Fellowship,{{Cite web |title=Arthur Douglas Amiotte |url=https://www.bushfoundation.org/fellows/arthur-douglas-amiotte/ |access-date=2025-04-17 |website=Bush Foundation |language=en-US}}{{Cite web |title=Bush Artist Fellows 2002 |url=https://www.bushfoundation.org/app/uploads/2024/12/2002artistcatalog.pdf |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250417034009/https://www.bushfoundation.org/app/uploads/2024/12/2002artistcatalog.pdf |archive-date=2025-04-17 |website=Bush Foundation}} which allowed him to study Northern Plains art collections in the United States and Europe at the University of Montana-Missoula.

Amiotte received the Getty Foundation Grant in 1994 and 1995 and the Lila Wallace Reader's Digest Artists at Giverny Fellowship in 1997.{{Cite journal |last=Berlo |first=Janet C. |date=2006 |title=Cultures in Collision: Lakota History, Memory and Imagination in Arthur Amiotte's Collages |url=https://www.americanindianmagazine.org/sites/default/files/2018-01/NMAI-FALL-2006.pdf |url-status=live |journal=National Museum of the American Indian |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240604055816/https://www.americanindianmagazine.org/sites/default/files/2018-01/NMAI-FALL-2006.pdf |archive-date=2024-06-04}}

In 1999, he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award as Artist and Scholar by the Native American Art Studies Association.{{cite web |id=naasa|url=http://naasa.wordpress.com/about-naasa/award/ |title=Lifetime Achievement Award |publisher=Native American Art Studies Association }}

Arthur Amiotte holds honorary doctorates from the Oglala Lakota College and the Brandon University, Manitoba.

References

Bibliography

{{cite book |title=Spirit beings and sun dancers: Black Hawk's vision of the Lakota world |first1=Janet Catherine |last1 = Berlo | authorlink1 =Janet Catherine Berlo |publisher=George Braziller, in association with the New York State Historical Association| year=2000 |pages=190 | isbn = 0-8076-1465-3}}
{{cite book |ref=NMAI1994|title=This path we travel: celebrations of contemporary Native American creativity| author=National Museum of the American Indian (U.S.) |publisher=National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, and Fulcrum Pub.|year=1994 |isbn=978-1-55591-205-5| pages=126}}
{{cite journal |title=Giveaway for the Gods: An Interview with Arthur Amiotte |journal=Parabola: The Magazine of Myth and Tradition |year=1990 |volume=15:4 |issue=Winter

|pages=38–49 |issn=0362-1596}}

{{cite journal|title=Arthur Amiotte's banners |first1=Barbara |last1=Loeb |year=1985 |journal=American Indian Art Magazine |volume=10 |issue=2 (spring 1985) |issn=0192-9968 |pages= 54–59 |oclc=43941620}}
Vigil, Jennifer Claire. "Drawing Past, Present and Future: The Legacy of the Plains Indian Graphic Tradition in the Works of Arthur Amiotte." Ph D Dissertation, University of Iowa, 2004
{{cite book |title=Buffalo Bill's America: William Cody and the Wild West Show|first1=Louis S. |last1=Warren |publisher=Alfred A. Knopf |year=2005 |isbn=978-0-375-41216-5 |chapter = Standing Bear |page=396}}

= Museums and exhibitions catalogs =

External links

{{cite web |id=aktalakota |url=http://www.aktalakota.org/index.cfm?cat=1&artid=206 |title=Arthur Amiotte - Oglala Lakota |publisher= Akta Lakota Museum & Museum Center}}
[http://www.iaia.edu/museum/vision-project/artists/arthur-amiotte/ Arthur Amiotte], Vision Project

Category:Oglala people

Category:Artists from South Dakota

Category:Native American painters

Category:Oglala male writers

Category:Oglala writers

Category:1942 births

Category:Living people

Category:People from Pine Ridge, South Dakota

Category:Northern State University alumni

Category:University of Montana alumni

Category:Academic staff of Brandon University

Category:People from Custer, South Dakota