One of South Dakota’s most notable artists, Oscar Howe, faced great obstacles in his struggle to become a respected Native American artist. Born in 1915, Oscar began to take an interest in drawing by using sticks to make designs in the dirt. After contracting tuberculosis at the age of twenty, he went to the Santa Fe Indian School in New Mexico to study art and recover from his illness. In his lifetime, he painted many murals for towns in South Dakota, designed panels for the Mitchell Corn Palace, and became the artist Laureate of South Dakota in 1960. Oscar’s incorporation of Cubism and Abstract Expressionism into his traditional Native American themes earned him the reputation of an artist on the cutting edge of a new movement. His work is on display in galleries around the world.