• Source: Apache Cradleboard

Apache Cradleboard is a bronze sculpture created c. 1994 by Allan Houser. 15 casts were made.




Style


The form of the sculpture is in Houser’s signature style—a blend of modernist styles and Native American art and subject matter. Houser’s figures are highly stylized and don’t represent any one particular person which allow them to represent Southwest and Plains Native American cultures as a whole.




Themes


Mothers and children were one of Houser’s often repeated themes, and he regularly combined them into one form. Family, pride and the history of his tribe, the Apaches, were innately combined for Houser. This pride comes through the facial expressions of his subjects, especially the women. Houser identified with women on a certain level; he stated that when he was creating his art he was “trying to feel like the mother” and be serene. Kim Bourne, former CEO of Allan Houser Inc. said in an interview that “his themes are of nobility and the future and of the wonderful bond that his people on [sic] those stories that he’d heard [about the Apache].” The cradleboard was a significant part of the cultures of tribes living in the southwest, particularly the Apache. Apache mothers would typically make their baby a cradleboard when he or she was a few months old.




Notes






References


14 Productions Six. Unconquered Allan Houser and The Legacy of One Apache Family. Florida State University Libraries Films on Demand video, 32:15. 2008. http://digital.films.com/PortalViewVideo.aspx?xtid=43869
Ferg, Alan and Kessel, William. “Subsistence.” In Western Apache Material Culture: The Goodwin and Guenther Collections, edited by Alan Ferg, 49-86. University of Arizona Press, 1987.
KAET-TV. Allan Houser Apache Sculptor. Florida State University Libraries Films on Demand video, 30:04. 1976. http://digital.films.com/PortalViewVideo.aspx?xtid=31997
Lowe, Truman. “The Emergence of Native Modernism.” In Native Modernism: The Art of George Morrison and Allan Houser, edited by Truman Lowe, 10-37. Seattle: University of Washington Press 2004.
Momaday, N. Scott. “The Testament of Allen Houser.” In Native Modernism: The Art of George Morrison and Allan Houser, edited by Truman Lowe, 66-77. Seattle: University of Washington Press 2004.
Rushing, W. Jackson. Allan Houser: An American Master (Chiricahua Apache, 1914-1994). Hary N. Abrams Inc., 2004.
Rushing, W. Jackson. “Essence and Existence in Allen Houser’s Modernism,” Third Text 11, no. 39 (Summer 1997):87-94
Tremblay, Gail. “Tracks Worth Following.” In Native Modernism: The Art of George Morrison and Allan Houser, edited by Truman Lowe, 78-103. Seattle: University of Washington Press 2004.

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