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

Description

Horace Poolaw (Kiowa, 190684) was born during a time of great change for his American Indian people as they balanced age-old traditions with the influences of mainstream America. A rare American Indian photographer who documented Indian subjects, Poolaw began making a visual history in the mid-1920s and continued for the next fifty years. When he sold his photos, he often stamped the reverse: A Poolaw Photo, Pictures by an Indian, Horace M. Poolaw, Anadarko, Okla. Not simply by an Indian, but by a Kiowa man strongly rooted in his multi-tribal community, Poolaw s work celebrates his subjects place in American life and preserves an insider s perspective on a world few outsiders are familiar withthe Native America of the southern plains during the mid-twentieth century.
“For a Love of His People: The Photography of Horace Poolaw” is based on the Poolaw Photography Project, a research initiative established by Poolaw s daughter Linda in 1989 at Stanford University and carried on by Native scholars Nancy Marie Mithlo (Chiricahua Apache) and Tom Jones (Ho-Chunk) of the University of WisconsinMadison.
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