For a Love of His People: The Photography of Horace Poolaw

Posted By Toyacoyah Brown August 13th, 2014 Last Updated on: August 13th, 2014

I'm absolutely in love with these photos. One of the best presents I've gotten in the past several years were old black and white photos of my grandpa and his parents living in Oklahoma's dust bowl era, so these photos by Horace Poolaw really speak to me.

Horace Poolaw (Kiowa, 1906–1984), through black-and-white images, documented the Native people of rural Oklahoma with affection while providing insight into the values and community life of his time. In a new exhibit at the George Gustav Heye Center Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in New York, the curators hope to give a glimpse of Native life in 20th-century Oklahoma.

Spanning some 50 years of life on the Southern Plains of Oklahoma (1920s–1960s), Poolaw’s photographs reveal the warmth of local family and community while also demonstrating the mobility and involvement of Native peoples nationally in events such as World War II and the advent of consumerism. Poolaw demonstrates the contemporaneous presence of American Indian communities in all aspects of American life as full participants in the nation’s history and character. He also showcases regional cultural events, such as the American Indian Exposition in Anadarko, Okla.

The exhibition was curated by Tom Jones (Ho-Chunk) and Nancy Marie Mithlo (Chiricahua Apache).

The exhibit runs August 09, 2014 through February 15, 2015, so plenty of time to plan a visit! The Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in New York is located at One Bowling Green in New York City, across from Battery Park. The museum is free and open every day (except Dec. 25) from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Thursdays until 8 p.m. For information, call 212-514-3700 or visit www.AmericanIndian.si.edu.