CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 10/9/2023

On Indigenous Peoples' Day, work from 'Robert Houle: Red Is Beautiful'

“In Memoriam” (1987) is reproduced from Robert Houle: Red Is Beautiful, published by DelMonico Books and Art Gallery of Ontario to accompany the major traveling exhibition currently on view at Smithsonian, National Museum of the American Indian. Featuring paintings, drawings and installations produced between 1970 and 2021, this is, astonishingly, the first major retrospective of the artist, curator, writer and activist’s work. “I wish to… proclaim Robert Houle as the ‘Father’ of contemporary art practiced by Indigenous creators who are now recognized by the art world at large,” noted Canadian poet Duke Redbird writes. “It was Houle who first posited that Indigenous art did not only belong in the category of folk art; rather, it could be favorably compared to the finest creations at the forefront of the broader modern and contemporary art scenes.” This book sets the record straight.