Blackbear Bosin to be celebrated with new museum exhibition in Wichita

On the date renowned Kiowa-Comanche artist Blackbear Bosin would have turned 100 years old, the Mid-America All-Indian Museum in Wichita will kick off a new exhibition of Bosin’s life and artwork. Bosin designed Wichita’s iconic 44-foot Keeper of the Plains steel sculpture that sits at the confluence of the Arkansas and Little Arkansas rivers near the museum.

From 1 to 3 p.m. Saturday, June 5, the museum is holding a special event to celebrate the artist as it opens “Bring the Bosins Home: The Exhibit.” The exhibition showcases Bosin’s artworks that have been acquired by the museum since June 2019, when it started a campaign to dedicate the museum to Bosin’s work. According to museum officials, the Mid-America All-Indian Museum in Wichita is home to the largest public collection of Bosin’s work.

Bosin, who died in 1980 at age 59, was one of the founders of the museum, which was originally created in 1976 as an intertribal cultural and education center that also offered social services.

In 2019, the facility officially made a name change, swapping out center for museum. Also in 2019, the museum introduced the Bosin Society, a group dedicated to conserving and preserving the art and legacy of Bosin for future generations, and it started a two-year campaign called “Bring the Bosins Home” to add to its collection of Bosin works.

“We want to be the guardians of those pieces,” said museum executive director April Scott, in an earlier interview with The Wichita Eagle about the campaign.

Seventeen works were acquired during the campaign, including the significant “Torches of the Soul Seekers” painting and a tile reproduction of Bosin’s acclaimed dramatic painting, “Prairie Fire.” The latter was published in “National Geographic” magazine and had won first place in the 1953 Philbrook competition. The annual contest was run between 1946 and 1979 by the noted Native American art museum of the same name in Tulsa.

“Torches of the Soul Seekers,” completed in 1957, depicts a handful of Native Americans — four seated and one standing upright with arms outstretched — looking toward the aurora borealis. According to Native American lore, the northern lights are the spirits of departed loved ones coming through the darkness and communicating with the living.

Jerry Martin, who helped lead the museum from 1989 to 2000, donated “Torches of the Soul Seekers” as part of the “Bring the Bosins Home” campaign.

Familiar with the work from a print reproduction he’d seen as a kid when he would accompany his father, Bowman, on visits to Bosin’s Wichita studio, Martin purchased the original painting in 1995 after the museum couldn’t raise the money to buy it.

During Martin’s tenure with the center, he had realized the facility had little of Bosin’s work in its collection, which started an earlier effort to acquire Bosin’s works.

“I said, ‘This is wrong. He’s one of the most well-known and nationally known artists from Wichita who is a Native American,’” Martin said in an earlier Eagle interview.

Earlier acquisitions of Bosin’s work before the “Bring the Bosins Home” campaign included a watercolor believed to be the oldest surviving work of Bosin’s. It depicts Aiea Heights, Hawaii, where Bosin had been hospitalized for rheumatic fever when he was on his way with the U.S. Marines to serve in the Pacific theater during World War II.

Over the years, Bosin’s stepson, David Simmonds, donated about a dozen paintings, several of Bosin’s cartoons and some personal artifacts, including the artist’s pipe.

Bosin was born June 5, 1921, in Oklahoma and named Tsate Kongia — the Kiowa name for black bear — in honor of his great-grandfather. He went to St. Patrick’s Mission School in Anadarko, Oklahoma, where he was exposed to the work of the Kiowa Five, a group of inspirational Kiowa artists.

In Wichita, he worked for Boeing Aircraft, at McConnell Air Force Base, Western Lithograph and created movie posters for a chain of Wichita theaters. Through his art, which was exhibited at the National Gallery, the Smithsonian and elsewhere, he created a deep appreciation for his native culture and customs.

“Bring the Bosins Home: The Exhibit” will remain on display throughout 2021.

The Mid-America All-Indian Museum, 650 N. Seneca, is open 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday and closed major holidays. Admission is $7 adults; $5 for ages 55 and older, military with ID, students 13 and older with ID; $3 for children ages 6-12, and free for those under age 6 and members.

Kickoff event for ‘Bring the Bosins Home: The Exhibit’

Where: Mid-America All-Indian Museum, 650 N. Seneca

When: 1-3 p.m. Saturday, June 5 (Due to street closures for the River Run, the museum will not open until 1 p.m.)

Admission: Special June 5 event pricing, which includes activities and admission to the new exhibit, is $5, free for kids ages 12 and under and museum members.

More info: 316-350-3340 or theindiancenter.org

This story was originally published June 3, 2021 at 4:36 AM.