Horace Poolaw
1944 (ca)
Horace Poolaw, Aerial Photographer, and Gus Palmer, Gunner, MacDill Air Base, Tampa, FL,
Gelatin silver print12 1/4 x 9 9/16 ins
Source requested
Courtesy Stanford University. Horace Poolaw Photography Project. Courtesy Charles Junkerman
Poolaw's photographs often reveal the contradictions and irony of the Kiowa lifestyle as it underwent rapid transition during the first half of the twentieth century. After World War II broke out Poolaw enlisted in the Army Air Corps (the Kiowa's ancestral enemy) where he trained young men in aerial photography. "Because young Kiowa men were expected to become warriors, many of Poolaw's contemporaries joined the armed forces feeling that this was not only their patriotic duty as Americans, but an opportunity to fulfill traditional roles."
Lucy R. Lippard, ed., Partial Recall: Photographs of Native North Americans (New York: The New Press, 1992), Introduction, 27.
LL/33247
