Untitled Kiowa Family Portrait [SOLD]

C4155F-print.jpg

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Stephen Mopope, Kiowa Tribe Painter
  • Category: Original Prints
  • Origin: Kiowa Nation
  • Medium: serigraph
  • Size:
    12” x 9-1/2" image;
    17-7/8” x 15-1/8” framed
  • Item # C4155F
  • SOLD

Stephen Mopope (1898-1974) Qued Koi - Painted Robe was an influential and successful painter who was a member of the Kiowa Six-a group of six important early twentieth-century Kiowa artists. They were Spencer Asah, James Auchiah, Jack HokeahStephen MopopeLois Smoky, and Monroe Tsatoke. Mopope was born and raised on the Kiowa Reservation, Indian Territory, which later became the US state of Oklahoma.  Jeanne Snodgrass compiled American Indian Painters: A Biographical Directory which provides information about Mopope's family history and artistic beginnings: "Mopope's grandfather was a Spanish captive, kidnapped by the Kiowas from a wagon train crossing the prairie and reared by Chief Many Bears. On the Kiowa side he was a descendant of Appiatan, a noted Kiowa warrior. His granduncles were Silverhorn (Haungooah) and Hakok. They found him drawing designs in the sand and decided to teach him how to paint on tanned skins in the old Kiowa way. Mopope's childhood education by his grandmother was in the Kiowa tradition. [He also studied with Susie Peters of the Kiowa Agency in Anadarko, Oklahoma, and at the University of Oklahoma, Norman, in the late 1920s]. He is one of the original Kiowa Five [the "Five Kiowas" at the University of Oklahoma] and was primarily a painter and dancer most of his life." Note that Snodgrass' text was published in 1968-before the group began to be recognized as being comprised of six members.  

Serigraphy (or “Screen printing”) is a printing technique whereby a mesh is used to transfer ink onto a substrate, except in areas made impermeable to the ink by a blocking stencil. A blade or squeegee is moved across the screen to fill the open mesh apertures with ink, and a reverse stroke then causes the screen to touch the substrate momentarily along a line of contact. This causes the ink to wet the substrate and be pulled out of the mesh apertures as the screen springs back after the blade has passed. One color is printed at a time, so several screens can be used to produce a multicolored image or design.

Artist Signature - Stephen Mopope (1898-1974) Qued Koi - Painted RobeThis untitled serigraph by Stephen Mopope is a sweet, well-executed print featuring two Kiowa Indians.  The man, dressed in colorful traditional regalia, sits on horseback. The woman, wrapped in a beautiful blanket, stands beside him and carries a child in a cradleboard.  Mopope’s horse stares off into the distance, while his human subjects face the viewer directly. Their faces are stern and serious but very soft and appealing nonetheless.  The artist’s typical attention to detail is here, as least as much as the medium allows it to be. Rather than fine lines, we see loose but deliberate applications of bright color used to compose the intricacies of his subjects’ clothing.  This lovely print will appeal to anyone with a taste for traditional Native imagery.

The serigraph is placed under two layers of matting within a simple wood frame with a gold inner band.


Condition:
this Untitled Kiowa Family Portrait is in excellent condition

Provenance: from the estate of a large collection of a New York resident

Recommended Reading: Kiowa & Pueblo Art by J.J. Brody

Close up view of the family.

Stephen Mopope, Kiowa Tribe Painter
  • Category: Original Prints
  • Origin: Kiowa Nation
  • Medium: serigraph
  • Size:
    12” x 9-1/2" image;
    17-7/8” x 15-1/8” framed
  • Item # C4155F
  • SOLD

C4155F-print.jpgC4155F-large.jpg Click on image to view larger.