47 Facts About Blackbear Bosin

Blackbear Bosin's works have been modern icons of Native American art, and of his community, county, state and region.

Francis Blackbear Bosin was born June 5,1921, in Cyril, Oklahoma, near Anadarko, reportedly in a tipi.

Blackbear Bosin attended St Patrick's Mission School in Anadarko where he was exposed to the paintings of the Kiowa Six.

Blackbear Bosin briefly studied Anadarko High School before leaving to attend Cyril High School.

At 17, Blackbear Bosin married Ruth Johnson, and the couple had two daughters, Rowena and Patricia.

Blackbear Bosin permanently returned to Wichita in 1946, where he worked as a color separator and plate maker for Western Lithograph and then as an industrial designer and production illustrator for Boeing-Wichita.

In 1951, Blackbear Bosin entered an Indian art competition held by the Denver Museum of Art, where he was awarded the Purchase Prize.

Blackbear Bosin's daughters lived with the family in Wichita until they both graduated high school, and one of his sons, Francis Jr.

Also in 1953, Blackbear Bosin again secured first place at the Philbrook with Prairie Fire, the piece that eventually brought him international recognition.

Blackbear Bosin opened the Great Plains Studio in 1959 to expand his studio space and display his art alongside the works of other Indigenous artists.

Blackbear Bosin's paintings continued to be awarded by art institutions.

In 1960, Blackbear Bosin entered the All-Indian Show in New York, where he won both the First and Grand Prize.

Two years later, in 1965, Blackbear Bosin proceeded to win first place and the Grand Prize at the Philbrook's Indian Artists Annual.

Blackbear Bosin participated in an exhibition at the Whitney Gallery of Western Art at the Buffalo Bill Cody complex in Cody, Wyoming.

Blackbear Bosin was the only Native American artist to participate in the 1965 White House Festival of the Arts, when Prairie Fire was displayed at both the White House and the National Gallery of Art.

The beaded bowtie and cummerbund he wore were made by his mother and attracted the attention of the First Lady, Lady Bird Johnson, who requested that Blackbear Bosin be moved to sit at her table.

The US Department of the Interior commissioned a series of paintings from Blackbear Bosin, known as the Kiowa Series, devoted to displaying the historical and religious heritage of the Kiowa.

Blackbear Bosin completed the first two paintings between 1965 and 1966, but the final work was not finished until 1973 and the series was not publicly displayed until 1976.

Blackbear Bosin was awarded a Certificate of Appreciation by the Indian Arts and Crafts Board of the Department of the Interior in 1966.

In 1967, Blackbear Bosin was awarded the Victory Trophy at the 22nd Indian Annual hosted by the Philbrook.

Blackbear Bosin was chosen as an exhibitor, that year, for the Smithsonian Institution's American Discovers Indian Art Show.

Blackbear Bosin had been experiencing health issues, starting in 1960 when he was diagnosed with diabetes, but his health worsened significantly in 1968.

Blackbear Bosin had to be hospitalized for a period and his doctors advised that he slow down his work.

In 1970, Blackbear Bosin exhibited at the All-Indian Show, at the Kennedy Center, in New York City.

Blackbear Bosin's recovery was lengthy, and he suffered loss of sight in both eyes that left wide, horizontal fields of darkness across his vision.

The quality of Blackbear Bosin's painting did not decline because of his vision loss, but it did make the work more difficult for him.

Blackbear Bosin was commissioned to create ten designs for a series of fifty sterling silver medals produced by the Franklin Mint for The Medallic History of the American Indian in 1975.

In 1976, Blackbear Bosin was honored at the American Indian National Achievement Awards in the Traditional Indian Painting category.

Blackbear Bosin was included in Songs from the Earth, an important exhibition of Indigenous art, and appointed to the Kansas Arts Commission Board.

The state of Kansas awarded Blackbear Bosin the Distinguished Service Award in 1977.

Blackbear Bosin was later appointed as Governor's Artist by Robert Frederick Bennett, Kansas's governor at the time.

Blackbear Bosin began restricting the showing of his work in 1978, but he did show in the Oklahoma Museum of Art and the New Britain Museum of American Art during that year.

Blackbear Bosin produced his final painting, Reflections of Rainy Mountains, using acrylics.

Blackbear Bosin wore traditional regalia that was adorned with his mother's intricate beadwork.

Blackbear Bosin led a dance to the rhythm of a song that was passed on to him by his father when he had been inducted into the Kiowa Gourd Society and O-Ho-Mahs Lodge Society years before.

In March 1980, Blackbear Bosin's mother died while living with him and his wife.

Stricken by grief, Blackbear Bosin struggled to complete his final commissions.

Blackbear Bosin was survived by his second wife, Nola Davidson Simmonds, his four children, Rowena, Patricia, Francis Jr.

Blackbear Bosin began practicing art while attending St Patrick's Mission School in Anadarko, where he was able to study Kiowa and European art through the school's collections.

Blackbear Bosin was heavily influenced by his mother, who was an accomplished bead worker.

Blackbear Bosin's work became increasingly complex and dynamic, reflecting the influence of surrealists and his incorporation of culturally specific scenes and subject matter.

Blackbear Bosin wove a unique aesthetic combining the Southern Plains Indians' flat style of painting with modern surrealism, delivered through Bosin's favorite medium, gouache, a type of opaque watercolor paint.

Watercolors and gouache allowed Blackbear Bosin to create a controlled layering effect that gave his canvasses their distinctive look.

Blackbear Bosin was known to make several drafts of each painting, sometimes making up to ten sketches before transferring the image onto the canvas, to ensure that the composition was correct.

Blackbear Bosin began to include increasingly detailed backgrounds in his paintings that set the tone of the piece and constructed a sense of space.

In 1952 when he left Boeing to work in the training aids and arts department at McConnell Air Force Base, Blackbear Bosin produced visual training materials for pilots.

In 1955, Blackbear Bosin left the civil service sector to pursue art fulltime.