Singing Love Songs
Artist
Allan Capron Houser
Year1940
Classification
painting
Medium
oil on plaster
Dimensions7 ft. 4 1/2 in. x 24 ft. 7 1/2 in. (224.8 x 750.6 cm)
Credits
Commissioned through the Section of Fine Arts, 1934 - 1943
Fine Arts Collection
U.S. General Services Administration
Fine Arts Collection
U.S. General Services Administration
- Singing Love Songs is a mural by Chiricahua Apache artist Allan
Houser, which stretches across the north wall
of the eighth-floor penthouse at the Department of the Interior building. In
the painting, two young men on horseback sing songs for a young maiden on the
other side of an archway. Her riding partner and little sister tease her with
smiles on their faces. When designing this mural, Houser described how “in the
early days of the tribe when a boy was interested in a certain girl he would
watch for the girl leaving camp, and at the first chance he would saddle up his
pony and follow.” In his murals, Houser often includes notes of humor. For
instance, the two men ride on a horse and a donkey that look longingly at a
water fountain mounted on the wall.Allan Houser, or Haozous, was commissioned in
1939 to create a series of murals at the new Department of the Interior
building in Washington, D.C. He was one of four Native American artists, who
painted 2,200 feet of murals for the penthouse, which served as the employee
lounge. Zia Pueblo artist Velino Herrera painted the north corridor, and
Potawatomi artist Woody Crumbo covered the south corridor. In the main room,
the walls were divided between Houser and Navajo painter Gerald Nailor. The
Secretary of the Interior, Harold Ickes, insisted on commissioning artwork by
Native American artists. Because of this mandate, the Section of Fine Arts
invited Herrera, Crumbo, Houser, and Nailor to participate in the penthouse
project and contacted two Kiowa artists, James Auchiah and Stephen Mopope, to
paint murals for the cafeteria.
