Blackbear Bosin

Francis Blackbear Bosin
Born	(1921-06-05)June 5, 1921 Cyril, Oklahoma, United States
Died	August 9, 1980(1980-08-09) (aged 59) Wichita, Kansas, United States
Nationality	American
Other names	Tsate Kongia
Occupation(s)	Artist (sculptor, painter), Graphic Designer
Notable work	Keeper of the Plains, 1968-1974 From Whence All Life, 1972 Wichita, My Son, 1965 Prairie Fire, 1955 Wind Spirit, 1955
Awards	National American Indian Achievements Award, American Indian Art and Cultural Exchange, 1976 Certificate of Appreciation, American Revolution Bicentennial Administration, 1976 Distinguished Service Award, State of Kansas, 1977 Kansas Governor's Artist, 1977

Blackbear Bosin (June 5, 1921 – August 9, 1980) was a self-taught Comanche/Kiowa sculptor, painter, and commercial artist. He is also known by his Kiowa name, Tsate Kongia, which means "black bear."

Early life (1921–1946)

Francis Bosin was born June 5, 1921, in Cyril, Oklahoma, near Anadarko. His father, Frank Blackbear, was Kiowa, and his mother, Ada Tivis Bosin, was of the Quahadis, or antelope-eater band, of the Comanche Nation. His Kiowa name, Tsate Kongia, means "Blackbear" and belongs to his paternal grandfather, a Kiowa chief. As the oldest male child, he was sent to live with his maternal, Comanche grandparents as soon as he was able to walk. He attended St. Patrick's Mission School in Anadarko where he was exposed to the paintings of the Kiowa Six.

Bosin briefly studied Anadarko High School before leaving to attend Cyril High School. At the age of 17, Bosin married Ruth Johnson (Caddo), and the pair had two daughters together, Rowena and Patricia. He was offered an arts scholarship to the University of Oklahoma after graduating high school, but due to his new responsibilities as a husband and a father, he turned it down. Instead, he chose to attend the Chilocco Indian Agricultural School where he trained to work with sheet metal. In 1940, Bosin and Johnson moved to Wichita, Kansas, with their daughters. It was here that the couple had two sons, Francis Jr. and Niles.

To support his family, Bosin enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps and was trained as a machine gunner. In November 1943, while stationed in Maui, Hawaii, he fell ill and had to be hospitalized at Aiea Heights Naval Hospital in Honolulu, Hawaii. It was here that he took up painting again. Before his discharge in 1945, the hospital hosted a one-man exhibition of his works. Prior to leaving the military, Bosin briefly returned to Wichita to sign divorce papers, which marked the end of his marriage with Johnson. 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.

Art career (1946–1967)

After returning to Wichita in 1946, Bosin continued to paint. In the same year, he entered the Philbrook Art Center's first Indian Artists Annual, where he won an honorable mention for Green Corn Dance. After his success at the Philbrook, Bosin continued to enter art competitions there and at other galleries, art centers, and museums. Between 1947 and 1948, his work was included in exhibitions at the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts and the Detroit Institute of Arts. In 1951, Bosin entered an Indian art competition held by the Denver Museum of Art, where he was awarded the Purchase Prize.

Bosin's career as an artist began to take off in the early 1950s, beginning with the Philbrook’s Indian Art Annual in 1952 where he was awarded first prize for Death Bird. He secured first place again the next year with Prairie Fire, the piece that brought him international recognition. The acclaimed painting was purchased by the Philbrook and later featured in the May 1955 issue of National Geographic.

While working at Boeing, Bosin met Nola Simmonds, an art teacher who would later become his wife. The two were married in 1953, after which they moved in together and Bosin became stepfather to David, Simmonds only child. Bosin's daughters lived with the family in Wichita until they both graduated high school, and one of his sons, Francis Jr., lived with them up until the sixth grade.

In 1955, Wind Spirit, the companion piece to Prairie Fire, was shown at the DeYoung Museum in San Francisco and then won the Purchase Prize at the Philbrook's Indian Annual. After the competition, the Philbrook invited Bosin to participate in a one-man exhibition.

Bosin opened the Great Plains Studio in 1959 to expand his studio space and display his art alongside the works of other Indigenous artists. The same year, he was commissioned by the Hotel Broadview in downtown Wichita to design a mosaic mural for the Crystal Ballroom. Constructed entirely from semi-opaque glass chips and measuring an incredible 1,500 square feet, The Advance of Civilization in Kansas is the largest continuous mural in Kansas.

His paintings continued to be awarded by art institutions. In 1960, Bosin entered the All-Indian Show in New York, where he won both the First and Grand Prize. The following year he travelled to Kreuzlingin, Switzerland, to receive honors after he was elected Fellow of the International Institution of Arts and Letters. In the same year, two of his former entries in the Philbrook's Indian Artist Annual were purchased by the Arts and Crafts Board of the Department of the Interior. In 1963, the Philbrook hosted another one-man show of Bosin's work and four of his pieces were included in the Heard Museum's Gallery of Indian Art's inaugural exhibition.

Two years later, in 1965, Bosin proceeded to win first place and the Grand Prize at the Philbrook's Indian Artists Annual. The same year, the Wichita Art Museum hosted a showing of 24 of Bosin's works. The museum later commissioned him to do a painting titled, Wichita, My Son, which represents the relationship between Wichita and the local Indigenous communities. Bosin also participated in an exhibition at the Whitney Gallery of Western Art at the Buffalo Bill Cody complex in Cody, Wyoming.

Bosin was the only Native American artist to participate in the 1965 White House Festival of the Arts, where Prairie Fire was displayed. The beaded bowtie and cummerbund he wore were made by his mother and attracted the attention of Lady Bird Johnson, who requested that Bosin be moved to sit at her table.

The Department of the Interior commissioned a series of paintings from Bosin, known as the Kiowa Series, that was devoted to displaying the historical and religious heritage of the Kiowa. The series consisted of three works, Of the Owls Telling, Taime Man, and The Ten Grandmothers. 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. He was awarded a Certificate of Appreciation by the Indian Arts and Crafts Board of the Department of the Interior in 1966.

In 1967, Bosin was awarded the Victory Trophy at the 22nd Indian Annual hosted by the Philbrook. After receiving this award, he made the decision to step back from entering art competitions altogether because he believed it was time for younger artists to gain recognition.

Later years and death (1967–1980)

Bosin had been experiencing health issues, starting in 1960 when he was diagnosed with diabetes, but his health worsened significantly in 1968. He had to be hospitalized for a period and his doctors advised that he slow down his work. A year later, Bosin suffered his first heart attack.

While in the hospital, Elmer Hall, a friend of Bosin and employee of the KG&E plant in Wichita, asked Bosin if he would design a large-scale statue as tribute to the Indigenous peoples in the area. The sculpture, titled The Keeper of the Plains is a 44-foot Cor-Ten steel sculpture situated at the confluence of the Arkansas and Little Arkansas rivers. Construction of the sculpture began in 1970 and was finally completed in 1974, after multiple financial setbacks. A ceremony with performances and blessings by local Indigenous peoples, including a blessing in the Winnebago language by Etta Hunter, was held for the official unveiling of the sculpture. Two 10-foot replicas of the sculpture were installed in Wichita's sister cities, Tlalnepantla, Mexico, and Orleans, France, in 1975.

In the early months of 1971, Bosin held a show at the Wichita Art Association and was commissioned by the Farm Credit Bank of Wichita to paint a large-scale mural. Months later in September, Bosin had to undergo open heart surgery, which severely set back the progress of the mural. His 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 Bosin's painting did not decline because of his vision loss, but it did make the work more difficult for him. To complete the mural on time, his wife and office staff helped paint the basic areas of the work while he filled in the details.

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. The double-sided coins recorded historical events ranging from prehistoric migration from Asia to North America to the completion of the transcontinental railroad, featuring the “traditional view” of the event on one side and the “Indian interpretation” on the other.

In 1976, Bosin was honored at the American Indian National Achievement Awards in the Traditional Indian Painting category. He was also 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 Bosin the Distinguished Service Award in 1977. He was later appointed as Governor's Artist by Robert F. Bennett, Kansas's governor at the time.

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. Due to the toll his loss of vision took on his ability to paint quickly, Bosin had to give up gouache in favor of acrylics. While the acrylics dried less quickly than gouache, they did not have the same layered effect as Bosin's earlier works. He produced his final painting, Reflections of Rainy Mountains, using acrylics.

In the later years of his life, Bosin began to dance at regional powwows with his close friends. He wore traditional regalia that was adorned with his mother's intricate beadwork. 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, Bosin's mother died while living with him and his wife. Stricken by grief, Bosin struggled to complete his final commissions.

Five months later, on August 9, 1980, Bosin died from heart problems and complications stemming from a severe gall bladder infection. He was survived by his second wife, Nola Davidson Simmonds, his four children, Rowena, Patricia, Francis Jr., and Niles, and stepson, David Simmonds.

In 2012, David Simmonds published a biography detailing Bosin's life and accomplishments, titled Blackbear Bosin: Keeper of the Indian Spirit.  

Art style and practice

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. It was through his observations of historical art forms that he learned how to manipulate bodily proportions, create anatomically correct figures, and emulate the style of the Kiowa Six. He was also heavily influenced by his mother, who was an accomplished bead worker.

A self-taught artist, Bosin attributed his distinctive artistic style to his lack of formal arts training and relative isolation from other practicing artists. His work became increasingly complex and dynamic, reflecting the influence of surrealists and his incorporation of culturally specific scenes and subject matter. Watercolors and gouache allowed Bosin to create a controlled layering effect that gave his canvasses their distinctive look. He 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. Bosin also began to include increasingly detailed backgrounds in his paintings that set the tone of the piece and constructed a sense of space.

Although he was able to paint in the European style of realism, Bosin found no reason to do so. In a 1975 interview he stated, “I find it empty. I simply don’t care for it. I would rather stay within the limitations of Traditional Indian paintings, going on to explain that adapting and reshaping traditional styles better represents the transient, poetic experience he is trying to capture in his work.

Bosin also frequently sketched, filling his sketchbooks with caricatures, drawings, and cartoons, all of which he signed as “Chief.” The first and only time his cartoons were exhibited was in 1979 at the New Britain Museum of American Art in Connecticut.

Commercial art

Bosin also worked as a production illustrator and commercial artist. In 1952 when he left Boeing to work in the training aids and arts department at McConnel Air Force Base, Bosin produced visual training materials for pilots. His instructional booklet, JetRock Jock, took a humorous approach to advising pilots of the various mishaps and dangers of flying. The booklet gained popularity and was distributed to other pilot training programs across the United States.

In 1955, Bosin left the civil service sector to pursue art fulltime. He partnered with A.E. “Waddy” Wadsworth to open a small commercial art studio where they produced visuals for local movie theaters and small businesses.

Bosin also designed the logos for the Mid-America All-Indian Center in Wichita and the Wolf Creek Nuclear power plant in Burlington, Kansas.

Awards and honors

• Certificate of Merit, the Philbrook Indian Art Annual, 1946
• Purchase Prize, the Denver Museum of Art Indian Art Competition, 1951
• First Prize, the Philbrook Indian Art Annual, 1952
• Grand Prize, the Philbrook Indian Art Annual, 1953
• Purchase Prize, the Philbrook Indian Art Annual, 1955
• Grand and First Prize, the All-Indian Show, 1960
• Fellow of the International Institute of Arts and Letters, Kreuzlingin, Switzerland, 1961
• Grand Prize and First Prize, the Philbrook Indian Art Annual, 1965
• Certificate of Appreciation, the Indian Arts and Crafts Board, 1966
• Victory Trophy, the Philbrook American Indian Artists Exhibition, 1967
• Award for Traditional Indian Painting, the American Indian National Achievement Awards, 1976
• Distinguished Service Award, the State of Kansas, 1977
• Governor's Artist, Governor Robert F. Bennett of Kansas, 1977

Public collections

• Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Cody, Wyoming
• Bureau of Indian Affairs, United States Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C.
• Denver Art Museum
• Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians & Western Art, Indianapolis
• Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, Oklahoma
• Heard Museum, Phoenix
• Indian Arts and Crafts Board, United States Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C.
• Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, Oklahoma
• Wichita Art Association Gallery, Wichita, Kansas
• Wichita Art Museum, Kansas.
• Private Collection, Stevan Allen, Morgan Hill, California
• Private Collection, Anonymous, Wichita, Kansas
• Mid-America All-Indian Center, Wichita, Kansas

See also

• Kiowa Six
• Native American art

External links

• "Blackbear Bosin (1921-1980)", Mid-American All Indian Center