Robert Houle
Robert Houle is an Anishinaabe Saulteaux contemporary artist, curator, writer, critic and educator. His artistic and curatorial practice has played a significant role in the recovery of Indigenous heritage.
Houle’s practice draws on Western art conventions to tackle lingering aspects of European colonization of Indigenous people. He relies on the objectivity of Modernism and the subjectivity of a postmodernism to bring text and photographic documents into his work.
Houle studied at the University of Manitoba, McGill University, and the International Summer Academy of Fine Arts in Salzburg, Austria, and for many years taught Indigenous Studies at the Ontario College of Art and Design. From 1977 to 1981, he was Curator of Contemporary Aboriginal Art at the Canadian Museum of History (formerly the Canadian Museum of Civilization).
During his tenure at the Canadian Museum of Civilization, he opposed the relegation of contemporary Indigenous art to anthropological artifact. Houle resigned his position over what he saw as the museum’s spiritual transgressions against sacred objects and Indigenous knowledge.
This experience significantly affected his art practice. At this point Houle began to introduce themes of Indigenous ceremonial objects , such as the parflèche, or saddle bag, and the warrior spear and shield.
Houle has exhibited widely, most recently in the exhibit Robert Houle: Red is Beautiful at the Art Gallery of Ontario, a large scale retrospective of his works from 1970 to 2021.
In 1992 Houle was co-curator of the groundbreaking exhibit Land, Spirit, Power at the National Gallery of Canada. This exhibit brought an unprecedented level of mainstream recognition to Indigenous contemporary art and prompted the integration of Indigenous art into contemporary art collections, resulting in changes in the approach towards the installation and documentation of work by Indigenous artists in museums across the country.
For further information about the career of Robert Houle please read this excellent online biography: Robert Houle: Life & Work by Shirley Madill.
National Gallery of Canada Robert Houle artist page
McMichael Canadian Art Collection Robert Houle artist page
Robert Houle: Red is Beautiful at the Art Gallery of Ontario
Available Works
Parfleches for the last supper
Robert Houle
169 Parfleches, paper, painted with paper pulp, adorned with quills (5 1/2” x 5 1/2”)
Sets of thirteen works, wrapped in canvas, in walnut boxes, and presented on a walnut plinth
Jesus (Set #12) framed (sold)
Available box editions:
#1 Mathew, #2 James the less, #3 Jude, #4 Simon, #5 Phillip, #6 Andrew,
#7 Bartholomew, #8 Thomas, #9 James, #10 John, #11 Judas, #13 Peter
New Sentinel, 1990
Screenprint with ribbons, Edition 6/22, 1990, 31” x 63” $7000
Thunder, 2016
Robert Houle
Acrylic on Mylar, 47” x 78 1/2“ framed (sold)
Untitled photo montage, 1994
Robert Houle
Unique photo lithograph, 37” x 31 1/2” framed. (sold)