Kevin Red Star, Abstract Crow Tipi, mixed media, 48 x 72.
A highly respected figure in the contemporary Native American art movement, Kevin Red Star left the Crow reservation in southern Montana in 1962 to join the inaugural class at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. After further studies at the San Francisco Art Institute and at colleges in his home state, he quickly established an avid following among collectors and curators alike for his modern yet historically accurate images of tribal figures, teepees, artifacts, and animals.
Today, at 77, Red Star remains happily at home in Montana, where his large studio holds as many as eight easels for the multiple pieces he works on simultaneously. “I go back and forth between them,” he laughs. “I’m always having fun.” Lately, he says, he has been experimenting with compositions inspired partly by the collages he put together back in his student days. Red Star is also creating a series of pieces on sheets of handmade paper measuring as small as 4 by 5 inches, which he sells at very accessible prices. “They’re for people starting out to collect, maybe even some high school students,” he says.
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- Kevin Red Star, White Bison Tipi, mixed media, 60 x 48.
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- Kevin Red Star, Spring Time, mixed media, 72 x 48.
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- Kevin Red Star, Three Horse Shield, mixed media, 36 x 32.
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- Kevin Red Star, Strike the Enemy, mixed media, 60 x 48.
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- Kevin Red Star, Old Raven Crow Indian War Chief, mixed media, 48 x 36.
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- Kevin Red Star, Spotted Tail’s War Party Returning to Camp, mixed media, 60 x 48.
The paintings are rare bargains from an artist represented by top galleries and whose works appear in major museums nationwide. The Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian has included his painting WOLF ATTACK among the 39 works in Stretching the Canvas: Eight Decades of Native Painting, on view until this fall in New York City. “I feel so good to be in that show,” Red Star notes, his voice hushed with pride. “The Smithsonian collected their first piece of mine about 45 years ago.”
Red Star is represented by Dana Gallery, Missoula, MT; Modern West Gallery, Kalispell, MT; Courtney Collins Gallery, Big Sky, MT; Stapleton Gallery, Billings, MT; Sorrel Sky Gallery, Durango, CO, and Santa Fe, NM; Kevin Red Star Studio and Gallery, Roberts, MT. –Norman Kolpas
This story appeared in the May 2021 issue of Southwest Art magazine.