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Spencer Asah

Kiowa, 1906-1954

Birth PlaceCarnegie, Oklahoma, United States, North America

Death PlaceNorman, Oklahoma, United States, North America

BiographyArtist and muralist that used themes and images to present the culture of Kiowa dancers and images of Kiowa life. His work is flat and two-dimensional. Line drawings and paintings were meticulous and exact replications of the feather work and regalia appropriate for the occasion.

Spencer Asah was born around 1905 in Carnegie, Oklahoma. His Kiowa name was Lallo (Little Boy). His father was a buffalo medicine man. Asah's father provided him with extensive cultural information that he later used in his art.

Asah attended St. Patrick's Indian Mission School in Anadarko, Oklahoma, where he received his first art instruction from Sister Olivia Taylor, a Choctaw nun. Government field matron Susan Peters arranged for Mrs. Willie Baze Lane, an artist from Chickasha, Oklahoma, to provide further art instruction for young Kiowa artists, including Asah. Recognizing the talent of some of the young artists, Peters convinced Swedish-American artist Oscar Jacobson, director of the University of Oklahoma's School of Art, to accept the Kiowa students into a special program at the school. Asah was a member of The Kiowa Five, now increasingly known as the Kiowa Six. In 1928, the Kiowa Five had their major breakthrough into the international fine arts' world by exhibiting at the First International Art Exposition in Prague, Czechoslovakia. Dr. Jacobson arranged for their work to be shown in several other countries and for Kiowa Art, a portfolio of pochoir print artists' paintings, to be published in France.

Person TypeIndividual