Kim Jarand
Specialist, Head of Sale
Lot 24
An Oscar Howe painting, "Sun Dancer"
24 April 2025, 11:00 PDT
Los AngelesSold for US$89,400 inc. premium
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Oscar Howe
Yanktonai Dakota, (1915-1983), "Sun Dancer," undated, casein on paper framed under Plexiglas, signed lower right: Oscar Howe, titled on University of South Dakota label retained verso.
sight: height 20 1/4in, width 9in
sight: height 20 1/4in, width 9in
Footnotes
Provenance
Mr. and Mrs. E.M. Hansen, Sioux City, IA, purchased directly from the artist circa 1961
University Art Galleries, The University of South Dakota, Vermillion, SD, acquired from the above
Albert and Sarah Stuart, Clarendon Hills, IL, acquired from the above in 1989
The Sarah Stuart Irrevocable Trust
Although the present lot is undated, the stylistic execution bears strong similarities to similar works Howe created in the mid-to late 1950s.
For a discussion of the recurrence of the Sun Dance in Howe's body of work, see Ash-Milby, Katherine and Anthes, Bill, editors, Dakota Modern: The Art of Oscar Howe, 2022, National Museum of the American Indian, Washington, DC., pp.40-41.
"Nowhere has the Sun Dance been studied and written about as much as among the Sioux. Because the Sioux version includes rites of blood sacrifice (which do not occur in every Plains society in which this ritual takes place), it has been a magnet of scholarly attention as well as a source of fascination to outsiders. At midsummer, when the sun is at its strongest point over the plains, large crowds of extended families and their guests gather for the Sun Dance to partake in several days of celebratory dancing, feasting and honoring. Howe's paintings focus solely on the central and most visually and dramatic moment of the event, the ritual hardship of the men who have vowed to sacrifice their blood by having their pectoral flesh attached to cords that are tied to - and then ripped away from - the Sun Dance pole. Howe returned to the subject of the Sun Dance throughout his career." Ibid, p.40
"It is unlikely that Howe ever participated in the Sun Dance, yet the artist vividly imagines and successfully presents the physical, psychological, and spiritual state of the Sun Dancer. The Sun Dancer's blood sacrifice is considered in Lakota religion as the embodiment of a profound cosmological truth: for a short time, those who undertake the Sun Dance ritual have been conjoined with the sacred power inherent in the sun, the tree, the zenith in the sky (where the pole reaches), and the nadir of the earth (where it is planted).
Moreover, by shedding their blood, these celebrants ritually align themselves with Ínyan, the primal rocklike element of the universe who, to create the earth and set the world in motion, summoned up blood from within his obdurate self. The dancers, therefore, are recapitulating the creation of the Lakota universe." Ibid, p.41
