Ingmars Lindbergs
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Property from the L.D. "Brink" Brinkman Collection, Kerrville, Texas, Lots 21-34
Lot 22W
An Allan Houser bronze, "War Pony," 1978
16 September 2019, 11:00 PDT
Los AngelesSold for US$35,075 inc. premium
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Allan Houser
Chiricahua Apache, (1914-1994), "War Pony," modeled 1978, bronze, edition 9/20, signed.
excluding base: height 23 1/2in
excluding base: height 23 1/2in
Footnotes
Provenance
The artist, as represented by the Gallery Wall, Inc., Phoenix, Arizona, and Santa Fe, New Mexico, 1981, a copy of the invoice of which accompanies the lot
Literature
W.J. Rushing, Allan Houser: An American Master, Harry N. Abrams, New York, NY, 2004, p. 114, another example illustrated
From 1962 to 1975, Houser taught sculpture at the Institute of the American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, eventually becoming the head of the sculpture department. During his tenure at the IAIA, Houser was prolific, experimenting with a range of themes, subjects and representative styles. "In the late 60s and early 70s, [Houser] made a series of striking busts of Native figures in steel, including 'Buffalo Dancer' (1969) and 'Plains Indian' (1971), which feature open and lattice-work forms and rusticated surfaces... [Both] are semi-abstract - somewhat more expressionist than realist, especially their painterly surfaces - but the reality they invoke feels truthful. They represent the synthesis of imagination and observation" (Ibid. p. 110-111).
Houser continued to explore this synthesis throughout his career, further incorporating sinuous natural forms, abstraction and "painterly" textures into his work. "War Pony," sculpted in 1978 and the smaller "Appaloosa," dating to 1980 and also offered in this catalogue, illustrate the natural progression of Houser's early experimentation with his steel openwork "Buffalo Dancer." As Houser's technique evolved over time, his modernist semi-abstract works began to take on a more streamlined elegance - without losing their essential dynamism.
