The Indigenous Artist Behind South Dakota's Largest Roadside Attraction: The Corn Palace and Oscar Howe

I just returned home from a summer road trip across the US, where my husband Dan and I traveled from Los Angeles to Northern Minnesota and back. We chose a route that would allow me the chance to mark another state off my bucket list… South Dakota! I’m not sure very many people would throw an exclamation mark after the state “South Dakota” as it’s known for being sparsely populated, but I’m here to report that I found a lot of depth and beauty there and have barely scratched the surface. The road trip route went like this: California > Nevada > Arizona > Utah > Wyoming > South Dakota > North Dakota > Minnesota. Most of our travel was on rural highways, which, to my surprise, led to natural opportunities to see those famous U.S. roadside attractions like Wall Drug, the World’s Tallest Thermometer, and Little America.

As we inched our way to South Dakota during the “heat dome” of summer ‘26 (120 degrees! I genuinely thought our tires might melt), I saw signs for the “Corn Palace” in Mitchell, SD. As the daughter of a corn farmer, it felt like my duty to stop.

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The history of the Corn Palace in Mitchell goes back to 1892, and their claim to fame is that it’s the world’s only building covered with a mural made of corn and grasses. Each year, a theme is decided by a committee, and the building is resurfaced with thematic murals and illustrations made from corn, grasses, flax, oats, and red weed. The interpretive art varies from year to year and mainly features historical themes pertaining to the Dakotas, the plains, wildlife, and Indigenous and pioneer peoples. New murals begin in September and are completed by November, and the timeline depends entirely on when the corn is ready for harvest. Fascinating!

As I walked into the Corn Palace, which smelled like popcorn, by the way, I made my way to the center of the building, where they host sporting events and concerts. I noticed an upper-deck balcony at the top, featuring historical photos of each year’s Corn Palace theme, and jetted up the stairs.

What really caught my eye, though, was down the hallway, where the historical Corn Palace mural drawings by the artist Oscar Howe, a Yanktonai Dakota artist from the Crow Creek Sioux Reservation, were on display.

Oscar Howe

Along the eastern shore of the Missouri River in what we now know as South Dakota, artist Oscar Howe (Mazuha Hoksina) was born on May 13, 1915, on the Crow Creek Sioux Reservation, part of the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ (Sioux Nation). Son of George T. Howe and beadwork artist Ella Fearless Bear, Oscar showed signs of artistic talent at a young age, drawing lines in the dirt and with charcoal. Theories suggested that perhaps by drawing in the dirt, Oscar developed a serious skin disease which the doctors said could not be cured. Because of these sores and rashes, young Oscar suffered in isolation from the other kids and endured years of loneliness.

When Oscar was six years old, his mother, Ella Fearless Bear, took him to a tribal dance that included a donation ceremony, which Oscar later noted as an event that changed his life. During this ceremony, where those in the tribe gave away something, a fellow Sioux member named Tom White gave Oscar a pony and presented it to him by saying “to the boy who is a ‘Ksapa’” meaning “the intelligent, understanding one.”1

Like many young indigenous children at the time, Oscar, at age seven, was sent to the Pierre Indian School run by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, a federal non-reservation boarding school designed to forcibly assimilate Indigenous children. The school enforced strict military discipline, requiring young children to learn army drills, dress in uniform, and stand at attention for 3 hours on Sundays. The school’s policy was to separate the child from their parents and to break any cultural traditions and behaviors. No student was allowed to speak their own Sioux language, and they were punished if they failed to speak English. Punishment at the school meant being pushed against heated radiators and beaten with rubber hoses. It’s noted that Oscar was beaten on the head so many times that forty years later, the scars could still be seen.

Because of his skin disease and being nearly blinded by trachoma, Oscar was sent back home to the reservation. With no medical care, Oscar began covering his whole body with soap, letting it dry on his skin, then washing it off. After a year of this discipline, his skin began to clear, and he returned to Pierre, where he realized he needed to succeed in one area to earn his classmates' respect. Although there were no art courses at the school, there were art contests, and Oscar won all of them. Oscar eventually graduated from all 8 grades and, in 1935, left South Dakota to attend the Santa Fe Indian School, where he enrolled in the influential art program, referred to as The Studio, led by Dorothy Dunn, who encouraged her students to draw on their culture to inspire their artwork.

After graduation, with only a high school diploma, Oscar returned to the reservation without any job prospects and with little money to buy paint, brushes, and canvases. In desperation to continue his art career, he accepted an art instructor position back at the Pierre Indian School, with no pay… only room and board. A year later, Oscar was given a project with the WPA, the regional Works Progress Administration, where he painted symbolic earth and sky designs on the domed ceiling of the Mitchell Library.

In the 1950s, he abandoned the Santa Fe style for a more abstract approach to painting, working largely in casein (milk paint) and gouache, using bright colors and pristine lines. Howe began to lead the way for other indigenous artists to free themselves from stereotypical “Native American” art and seek ways to communicate their history through more contemporary styles. In 1958, Howe submitted a masterpiece of a painting to the Philbrook Art Center, a national competition for Indigenous artists. The art competition wrote to him, informing him that the jury had rejected his painting on the grounds that it was not “traditional Indian painting.”

Howe’s rebuttal to this rejection shows how important his voice was for the progress of indigenous artists.

“Whoever said that my paintings are not in the traditional Indian style has poor knowledge of Indian art indeed … Every bit in my paintings is a true studied fact of Indian paintings. Are we to be held back forever with one phase of Indian painting, with no right for individualism, dictated to as the Indian always has been, put on reservations and treated as a child, and only the White Man knows what is best for him? Now, even in Art, ‘You little child do what we think is best for you, nothing different.” Well, I am not going to stand for it. Indian Art can compete with any Art in the world, but not as a suppressed Art. I see so much of the mismanagement and treatment of my people. It makes me cry inside to look at these poor people. My father died there about three years ago in a little shack, my two brothers still living there in shacks, never enough to eat, never enough clothing, treated as second class citizens. This is one of the reasons I have tried to keep the fine ways and culture of my forefathers alive … I only hope the Art World will not be one more contributor to holding us in chains.” (Oscar Howe, Letter to Philbrook Indian Art Annuals Jurors)

Oscar Howe, The Corn Palace Years and Beyond

Over the course of Oscar’s 40+-year career, he earned many awards and honors at exhibitions in London, New York, and Paris, as well as at more than 50 solo art shows. And in 1966, he was awarded the Waite Phillips Trophy for outstanding contributions to American Indian art by the Philbrook Art Center, the very place that had first rejected him. He went on to serve as an art professor and artist-in-residence from 1957-1980 at the University of South Dakota in Vermillion, and was hired as The Corn Palace’s muralist and designer from 1948-1971.

Here are a few of his Corn Palace designs throughout the years:

“I only hope the Art World will not be one more contributor to holding us in chains.” - Oscar Howe

Although I was initially drawn to the Corn Palace for being an intriguing piece of public art, I had no idea that I’d be introduced to such a powerful artist working behind-the-scenes for so many years. If you’d like to read more and see more of Oscar Howe’s art, here are a few resources I enjoyed!

• Meet the Hero: Oscar Howe
• The Dakota Modern
• Oscar Howe: Mazuha Hokshina – Trader Boy
• Oscar Howe by John R. Milton

Note: I tried my best to address and respect the appropriate titles given to the Yanktonai Dakota artist from the Crow Creek Sioux Reservation. If perhaps I’ve made a grammatical or cultural mistake, please reach out to me, as I want to make sure I’m addressing the beautiful culture appropriately and respectfully. Thank you!

Beth Mathews Design is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.