Allan Haozous was a Chiricahua Apache sculptor, painter, and book illustrator. His death still remains one of the biggest losses for the city of Oklahoma. We will discuss details of what exactly led to Allan Haozous’s death in this write-up.

Who is Allan Haozous?

Allan Haozous was born in 1914 to Sam and Blossom Haozous on the family farm near Apache, Oklahoma, and Fort Sill. He was the first member of his family from the Warm Springs Chiricahua Apache tribe born outside of captivity since its spiritual leader Geronimo’s 1886 surrender and the tribe’s imprisonment by the U.S. government.

In 1939, Allan Haozous began his professional career by showing work at the 1939 New York World’s Fair and the Golden Gate International Exposition. He received his first major public commission to paint murals at the Main Interior Building in Washington, DC. He also married Anna Maria Gallegos of Santa Fe, his wife for 55 years.

In 1940, he received another commission from the US Department of Interior to paint life-sized indoor murals. He then returned to Fort Sill to study with Swedish muralist Olle Nordmark, who encouraged Houser to explore sculpture. He made his first wood carvings that year.

When World War II interrupted Houser’s life and career path, he moved his growing family to Los Angeles, where he found work in the L.A. shipyards.

Allan Haozous Death Cause: How Did He Die? 

Allan Haozous died at his home on August 22, 1994, in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he was residing at the time. Since the announcement of his death, many have been questioning the exact cause that led to his demise.

Allan’s family has not spoken about any suspected foul play in his death. He died at the age of 80, and many believed that he may have died a natural death.

He was fortunate to have been the kind of artist who did not need to be “discovered” after his death, for he enjoyed a career in which he was able to create not just for his own satisfaction but for an appreciative public as well.

Upon his death, the honours kept coming. Among these was the installation of 19 monumental works of art in Salt Lake City during the 2002 Olympics and a retrospective of 69 works at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, DC. in 2004–2005. The exhibition marked the first major show for the new museum, and over three million people viewed it while it was on display.

After Haozous death in 1994, his legacy has been carried on by family members, including his two sons, Philip and Bob Haozous, who have achieved success as sculptors, and his grandson, Sam Atakra Haozous, an experimental photographer. The non-profit Allan Houser Foundation is devoted to the proliferation of the Houser name.

Allan Haozous Sculpture Career explored

While Allan Haozous’s early career was marked by his drawings and paintings, it was for sculpture that he eventually became a world-renowned artist.

He began in 1940 with simple wood carvings Houser created his first monumental work in stone in 1949, the iconic piece Comrades in Mourning at the Haskell Institute in Lawrence, Kansas. But it would be quite some time before he had the time and resources to produce the bronzes shown here.

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