Tashu ke hizi (Yellow Horse) is a color collagraph from 1983 by American printmaker John Ihle (1925-2002). It is pencil signed, titled, and editioned IX/X. Tash uke hizi (Yellow Horse) was printed by Jennifer Cole on ivory wove paper and the platemark measures 15-5/8 x 15-5/8 inches.
Tashu-ke-hizi, known to North American settlers as Yellow Horse, was a Yanktonai tribal member from the Standing Rock territory, born around 1845. He was a celebrated warrior who led campaigns against the Apsaroke (Crow) beginning at age fifteen. An account of his experience during the massacre of his tribespeople at Whitestone Hill in 1863 by American general Alfred Sully and his troops was recorded by Lucille Van Solen, a schoolteacher on the Standing Rock reservation who helped to record the oral histories of Sitting Bull and others.
John Ihle had long been fascinated by the pre-colonial histories of the Americas and elsewhere. He found inspiration in Indigenous pictography and symbolism, beginning with an early childhood visit to the Natural History Museum in Chicago. From the late 1960s through the mid 1970s, Ihle worked on a series of color intaglios he titled the Canadian Series, which incorporated his interpretation of this imagery. Though this print was created nearly a decade after he had completed the series, he continued to explore these themes, including in the earth and rust-toned Tashu ke hizi.
John Ilhle, printmaker and educator, was born in Chicago, Illinois on 1 February 1925. A recipient
of the GI Bill, he enrolled in 1946 at Illinois Wesleyan University where he studied
under Francis Chapin. During the summer of 1949, he enrolled at the University
of Iowa to study printmaking with Mauricio Lasansky. He returned to Wesleyan in
the fall and received his B.F.A. in 1950. Ernest Freed, Professor at Bradley
University and a Lasansky student, viewed Ihle's graduate show and offered him
graduate assistance at Bradley. Ihle became Freed's graduate assistant and
earned his M.A. in 1951.
In 1952, Ihle moved to the San Francisco Bay Area and, in 1955, he joined the faculty of San Francisco State University where he was appointed to full Professor. He was an active supporter of printmaking and participated in the Bay Printmakers and the California Society of Printmakers. He was awarded the 1998 Distinguished Artist Award from the California Society of Printmakers.
Ihle’s work is represented in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, Library of Congress, New York Public Library, Northwest Museum of Arts + Culture, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and the National Gallery of Art.
