July 2006

Thurman Horse,

Canupa Nakiciniji (“Protects The Pipe”)

1962 to Present

Thurman Horse, an enrolled member of the Oglala Lakota Sioux Tribe, was born January 12, 1962 on the Pine Ridge Oglala Sioux Reservation in South Dakota.  From a family of nine, he fondly remembers watching his father doing artwork at the kitchen table and later also learning carpentry from his father.  He learned how to break horses, cook and sew his own clothes.  He received his General Education Diploma from Box Elder Job Corps in Nemo, South Dakota in 1982.  Horse feels fortunate to have come from an artistic and sharing family, where pride in workmanship and positive reinforcement were instilled throughout his childhood.

His artistic resume actually begins in 1977, when he was a fifteen-year-old student at Porcupine Day School and attained recognition as “artist of the year.”  In 1978, he won First Place at the Intermountain Intertribal Arts Festival in Brigham City, Utah.  In 1984, he won First Place in the Martin Luther King Art Contest.

Horse supported his family through various forms of employment as a gardener, horticulture designer, carpenter, electrician, plumber, and as a working artist designing interior and exterior murals.  A turning point for Horse occurred in 1988 when he decided to pursue his art work fulltime.  

The artistic urge came from his earliest recollections as a child of four years old.  Before he started school, he remembers when he would take a picture from a book or catalogue and place it on a window.  Then, he would etch in a likeness in the frost.  In kindergarten, he loved to draw animals, but would always come back to his favorite subject, people.

Aesthetically, Horse views the complex world in colors, line and design.  He is already a master of the human form.  An old-world-style discipline gives impetus as he executes anatomically-correct animal and human subjects in challenging studies and compositions using diverse mediums.  Also evident in his work is exposure to, and influence by, popular contemporary Indian art expressions and styles of paintings reminiscent of T.C. Cannon, King Kuka, and Kevin Red Star.

Thurman Horse is a listed artist in the reference book, “The Biographical Directory of Native American Painters” by Patrick D. Lester [University of Oklahoma Press; (September 1, 1995)].  In 1992, he received a commission from the Oglala Lakota College in Kyle, South Dakota for two watercolor originals which were reproduced as posters commemorating the 1992 graduating class.  In 2000, he was commissioned to create a mural for a Sacramento, California-area casino and in 2003 he was again commissioned by the Oglala Lakota College to create the artwork for their 2004-2005 student handbook. His paintings and translation of the Lakota language are studied at the Black Hills State University of South Dakota.

Horse has been in numerous art shows, selling his paintings in Toronto, Ontario, Vancouver, British Columbia, Africa, Holland, Switzerland, Scotland, England and across the United States including Texas, California, Colorado, Utah, Iowa, and Alaska.

In 1991 Horse was interviewed for the documentary “Stories of the Horse” and was featured in the PBS documentary, “Homeland” (2000) (www.itvs.org/homeland/index.html).  He has also taken part in other films such as “Lakota Women” (1993) and Hidalgo (2004) as an Extra, a Ghost Dancer, and a Singer of Traditional Lakota songs.  He was also a Lakota Advisor for Steven Spielberg’s award-winning television mini-series, “Into the West” (2005).

Thurman Horse, the single father of four, continues to raise his children on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.  He is currently retired from work on disability but pursues his artwork on a limited scope as funds become available.

Information taken from numerous sources including www.lakotamall.com/shops/lakotagallery/thurmanhorse.htm, www.itvs.org/homeland/index.html, and original writings by Thurman Horse.