 RANCE HOOD is
one of the few Native American painters left who still paints in the
manner
which echoes the traditional Indian culture and spirituality of the
past that
has been drastically changed by the modern and white worlds.
Born in 1941 in Lawton,
Oklahoma,
Hood grew up in the home of his maternal grandparents who taught him
Comanche
Indian ways and values. Unable to speak English until he began public
school at
the age of six, he soon learned how to get by in the white world.
After his grandparents died, he dropped out of
school and worked on oil rigs
in Texas and rode the
rodeo
circuit. A trip to live briefly with his brother in California
brought about the desire to paint and draw about his own culture, and
he was
soon selling his art.
He returned to Oklahoma
in the
1960's and began spending more time on his art and researching its
traditions
by learning techniques from already successful Indian painters. Through
powwows, booth shows, and galleries, he became successful and won
recognition,
including "First" in the Plains Division of the juried shows of the
prestigious
Phillbrook Museum
in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Hood conducts business and produces art out of his
studio in Denison, Texas,
preferring to sell his own originals
and reproductions and shunning the highly-marketed hype many
"superstar" artists embrace. He also donates his time and talent by
providing images for Indian rights funds and film organizations for
fund-raising purposes which benefit Native Americans. The range and
focus of his
career even extends to producing his tribal emblem and the design of a
turbo
jet.
Hood has toured Europe and
Germany
with one-man shows, and his paintings hang in some of the finest
museums and
private collections in the world. His work has been mentioned in
countless
books chronicling Native American art, and his influence on other
artists can
be seen in art galleries throughout the U.S. and Europe in addition to
major
and minor magazines which focus on Indian art and culture.
Hood has introduced some abstract motifs into his
backgrounds, but he
adheres mainly to the traditional style of art practiced by his
ancestors.
Today, thirty years beyond his original success as a major Indian
artist in the
1960's. RANCE HOOD is still considered the most successful Plains
Indian artist.
-Joan Frederick, Native American Art
Historian
Author, T. C. Cannon: He Stood in the Sun,
published '95 by Northland Publishing,
Flagstaff, AZ 
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