Oscar Howe (Mazuha Hokshina or "Trader Boy", May 13, 1915 – October 7, 1983) was a Yanktonai Dakota artist from South Dakota, who became well known for his casein and tempera paintings. He is credited with influencing contemporary Native American art, paving the way for future artists. His art style is marked by bright color, dynamic motion and pristine lines. Early life and education Oscar Howe was born in 1915 in Joe Creek, South Dakota on the Crow Creek Sioux Reservation. His Dakota name was Mazuha Hokshina, or "Trader Boy." Descended from hereditary chiefs, he belonged to the Yanktonai band of Dakota people. He attended the Pierre Indian School (a boarding school) in South Dakota in 1933. His artistic talent was recognized when he was young, and Howe studied in Dorothy Dunn’s art program at the Studio of Santa Fe Indian School from 1933 to 1938. In 1940 Howe was sent by the South Dakota Artists Project (a division of the Works Progress Administration in the President Franklin D. Roosevelt administration) to Fort Sill Indian Art Center in Lawton, Oklahoma, to study mural painting techniques with Olle Nordmark. WPA artists were being commissioned to do murals in numerous federal buildings and sometimes local public buildings as well. He attended Bacone College, where his classmates included Terry Saul, and Walter Richard “Dick” West, Sr. After working for several years and serving in World War II, Howe went to college on the GI Bill, earning his B.A. degree at Dakota Wesleyan University in 1952. Having worked as an artist for more than a decade, he also taught as Artist-in-Residence. He received his M.F.A. at the University of Oklahoma in 1954. Howe met his future wife Heidi Hampel in Germany while serving overseas during World War II. He was discharged in 1945 and returned to the United States. After winning the Grand Purchase Prize in 1947 at the Indian Art Annual, sponsored by Philbrook Art Center, he had enough funds to send for Heidi to come to the United States, and they married. In 1948 they had a daughter, Inge Dawn, their only child. Art career Howe's early paintings are similar to other work produced by the Santa Fe Indian School. Later he developed a distinctive style of his own. Howe began with traditional Sioux "straight line" painting, based on hide and later ledger paintings of the 19th century. It was "an artistic