Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Three Young Kiowas
Horace Poolaw Native American
Not on view
In this photograph of Lela Ware (1914–1974), the artist’s sister Trecil Poolaw (1913–1940), and Paul Zumwalt (b. 1912), the two fashionable Kiowa women lean on a new automobile that may belong to Zumwalt, the man sitting inside. Poolaw’s subjects live in a world that is undeniably modern and Native—and they appear to be flourishing. The photographer’s cosmopolitan images of Indians provided a powerful counterpoint to the stereotypes of the period.
Poolaw was a semiprofessional photographer, taking pictures of his own family, friends, and events in his community from the late 1920s through the 1950s, a time of great transition on the Plains. He was inspired by photojournalism of the period, particularly images reproduced in Life magazine.
Due to rights restrictions, this image cannot be enlarged, viewed at full screen, or downloaded.
