FEBRUARY 6, 1919

HO-CHUNK (WINNEBAGO) PAINTER, ACTIVIST, TEACHER HINOOK-MAHIWI-KILINAKA (ANGEL DE CORA DIETZ) DIED

Born May 3, 1871, at the Winnebago Agency near current-Thurston, Nebraska, Angel’s name meant “Fleecy Cloud Floating in Place.” As a child, De Cora was kidnapped by a white man and sent to school at the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute. From there, she attended Burnham Classical School for Girls, and studied art at Smith College and Drexel Institute. Angel wrote & illustrated her own semi-autobiographical stories, The Sick Child & Gray Wolf’s Daughter, published in Harper’s Monthly. In 1898, De Cora painted Lafayette’s Headquarters. Moving from Philadelphia to Boston, she studied at Cowles Art School & the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. Angel’s art blended Western techniques & traditional Native American styles. Her figures focused on gesture; a feature often utilized in Native American pictographs. Through a feminized lens, she portrayed a changing people. Eventually teaching art at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, she died in Northampton, Massachusetts.

Sources:

Sarah McAnulty, Angel DeCora: American Artist and Educator; article by Sarah McAnulty (archive.org) Traditional Fine Arts on Line. Angel DeCora: American Artist and Educator; article by Sarah McAnulty (archive.org)

Jan McCoy Ebbets, Paying Tribute to Smith's First Known Native American Graduate, NewsSmith, Smith College. Retrieved 9/3/2022,

Smith College: News

Wikipedia

Photo: Author and date unknown (pre-1916).  Public Domain. Source: Gustave Hensel Studio, Hampton University Archives