Lois Smoky
| Lois Smoky Kaulaity | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Bougetah (Kiowa: "Of the Dawn"), Lois Smoky 1907 Near Anadarko, Oklahoma |
| Died | 1981 |
| Nationality | Kiowa |
| Education | St. Patrick's Indian Mission School, University of Oklahoma |
| Known for | Painting |
| Movement | Kiowa Five |
Lois Smoky Kaulaity (1907–1981) was a Kiowa painter, one of the Kiowa Five, from Oklahoma.
Lois Smoky was born in 1907 near Anadarko, Oklahoma.Bougetah was her Kiowa name, meaning "Of the Dawn." Her father, Enoch Smoky, was the great-nephew of Kiowa Chief Appiatan.
Smoky first studied art at St. Patrick's Indian Mission School, under the guidance of Sister Mary Olivia Taylor, a Choctaw nun, and received encouragement from Father Aloysius Hitta and Sister Deo Gratias at the school. Susan Peters, the Kiowa agency field matron, arranged for Mrs. Willie Baze Lane, an artist from Chickasha, Oklahoma to teach painting classes to young Kiowas in Anadarko. Recognizing the talent of some of the artists, Peters convinced Swedish-American painter Oscar Jacobson, director of the University of Oklahoma's School of Art, to accept the Kiowa students into a special program at the school in which they were coached and encouraged by Edith Mahier.
The Kiowa Five included six artists: Spencer Asah, James Auchiah, Jack Hokeah, Stephen Mopope, Lois Smoky, and Monroe Tsatoke. Smoky was the only woman and the youngest of the group. Finances were tight for the artists, so Smoky's parents helped them out by renting a house in Norman, where all they lived together. Smoky only studied at OU for the first year. James Auchiah joined the group after she left.
Unfortunately, Smoky was not able to participate in the Kiowa Fives' major breakthrough into the international fine arts world at the 1928 First International Art Exposition in Prague, Czechoslovakia. Dr. Jacobson arranged for their work to be shown in several other countries and for Kiowa Art, a portfolio of pochoir prints and artists' paintings, to be published in France. It is only in recent decades that her place among the Kiowa Five has been restored, thanks in part to the scholarship of Dr. Mary Jo Watson (Seminole) and the Jacobson House Native Art Center in Norman, Oklahoma.
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