Lot 145
“Holder of the Pipe”, Allan Houser (Apache, Oklahoma 1914–1994 Santa Fe, New Mexico), 1989
Works of Art, Antiquities & Ancient Art | A109kua | Live auction | 1190 Lots
Description
Bronze, with dark brown to black patina, mounted on a circular wooden base. Signed in the cast to the reverse of the plinth “ALLAN HOUSER”, dated “© 89”, numbered “5/10” and with the “SF” foundry mark of Shidoni Foundry, Tesuque, New Mexico. Standing male figure wearing a full-length blanket, his head slightly raised, holding a long-stemmed pipe with right-angled bowl before his body in his right hand; on an integrally cast plinth with a relief-textured surface. Patina lighter in tone on exposed areas, particularly the face, shoulders and folds of the blanket. Surface of the sculpture with scattered minor scratches. Three small pinpoint depressions or casting irregularities to the reverse immediately above the plinth. Fine scratches to the surface of the plinth in the area of the inscriptions, with scattered light-coloured accretions within the recesses of the surface texture. Wooden base with minor signs of wear. Bronze approx. 59 × 22 × 13 cm; wooden base H. approx. 4 cm. A member of the Chiricahua Apache, Houser was a major figure in 20th-century Native American sculpture, combining Indigenous subject matter with an increasingly modernist and abstracted formal vocabulary.Condition: I - II Questions about the lot?
