13 Facts About Silver Horn

Silver Horn was born c to Agiati and Sa-Poodle and was a member of the Kiowa Indian tribe of Oklahoma.

Silver Horn was a well-known artist from the early reservation period who was one of the most respected and talented Plains Indian artists in his time.

Silver Horn's father was Agiati or "Gathering Feathers", who was a calendar keeper.

Silver Horn was mostly known for his skills in working with different mediums and materials such as graphite, colored pencil, crayon, pen and ink, and water color on hide, muslin and paper.

Silver Horn produced over a thousand illustrations and works of art between 1870 and 1920.

Silver Horn developed and created very keen visuals of Kiowa culture, from traditional images, warfare, and coup counting to depictions of the sun dance, early Peyote religion, and daily life.

Silver Horn had witnessed traumatic changes as the Kiowa people went from a nomadic, buffalo-hunting culture to reservation life and forced assimilation into white society.

The depictions that Silver Horn would render were visionary images that were represented in abstract form on shields and events of the years past as a record in the pictorial calendar.

Silver Horn developed a complex calendar system with events recorded for summer and winter of each year and most calendars had very simple pictures that helped calendar keepers remember the name of each year.

Silver Horn created illustrations of myths and other oral traditions such as supernatural figures.

Silver Horn's works are still shown regularly and an extensive collection of them is held in the permanent collection of the Museum of New Mexico.

Silver Horn taught his great-nephew, Stephen Mopope how to paint on hides.

Silver Horn's great-granddaughter, Katherine Dickerson is a Kiowa beadworker, German silver worker, and moccasin maker.