Apache Round Dance

In his mural series, Apache Round Dance, the Chiricahua Apache artist Allan Houser composed two scenes of dancers on the east wall of the eighth-floor penthouse at the Department of the Interior building. One painting shows five women, including one with a baby swaddled on her back, dancing around baskets filled with bread and meat. In the other composition, twelve men also dance the Apache Round Dance. Houser noted that the dance “lasts until about twelve at night, then lunch is served of Indian bread and boiled beef or sheep.” In this mural, Houser chose to deviate from painting only the traditional dress of his respective tribe, which was expected by the Section of Fine Arts. Instead, he dressed a few of his male dancers in 1930s contemporary clothing, including jeans with rolled cuffs and shoes instead of moccasins.

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.