Turtle Island Storyteller Donald Montileaux

Donald Monitleaux

Donald Monitleaux

Ledger Art

My name is Don Montileaux. I'm an Oglala Lakota from the Pine Ridge Reservation and that's located in South Dakota.

Basically I guess I had my formal art training here in Rapid City, South Dakota where I live currently. I have a family of three: older daughter, son and younger daughter. My youngest daughter is 18 and just got accepted into IAIA in Sante Fe, New Mexico, which is really a coup for me because that's where I went to school and basically learned all my artwork that I use today. My wife's name is Paulette Monitleaux. She's the curator at the Sioux Indian Museum in Rapid City.

What Id like to talk about is my ledger art.

I feel very strongly in my presentations of ledgers because my mentor was a hide painter from Fort Peck Reservation in Montana. His name was Herman Red Elk.

So I learned the fundamental of painting hides and tanning all the way up to illustrating and finally painting them and presenting them. But every time I'd get to a show they would compare me to Herman Red Elk, which I was his student so naturally I did what he did. But historically I researched that by 1850 the buffalo were pretty much all gone from the plains and we as native people here on the northern plains had to find a new way to keep our historical records. So we turned to storekeepers and soldiers and with their discarded ledger books we maintained our history from about 1850 to 1910.

So a lot of people think this is a new form of artwork but basically it's historically correct and something I feel without we probably would have lost more historical value in our culture than we already have.

So that's my feelings on ledger art. I hope that you enjoy my artwork. I try to keep everything as precise as possible but being an artist I do take that artistic sense sometimes and do create something a little bit different. Thank you for listening to me and I hope I have enlightened you somewhat and I appreciate it. I thank you very much.

Donald Monitleaux, Buffalo, Buffalo, Buffalo

Donald Monitleaux
Buffalo, Buffalo, Buffalo
18 by 23

Donald Montileaux

Born January 3, 1948 in Pine Ridge, South Dakota, Don is an enrolled member of the Oglala Lakota Tribe. He attended college in Spearfish, South Dakota, and Santa Fe, New Mexico. He began his professional career at the Rushmore Plaza Civic Center in 1977, and began aggressively pursuing his artistic dream alongside his career in 1980. Don's work has literally spanned the globe.

Donald Montileaux is a modern-day storyteller, rekindling the images of the Lakota lifestyle by painting the people as they were. Donald regards himself as having a mission: "To portray the Lakota, the Native Americans, in an honest way. To illustrate them as people who hunted buffalo, made love, raised children, cooked meals, and lived."

To describe his work is to reflect back to his forefathers. The surfaces that they used were hides, rock walls and surfaces both smooth and rough and hides both tanned and rawhide. Don uses watercolor paper and canvas as well as hides to create his work. He enjoys using different types of materials to present the finished product to the viewer. In this way he can achieve somewhat the same look as his forefathers created with their work. The art is a flat two-dimensional intense color; fiery red, brilliant yellow and translucent blues. These colors, he feels, are the colors that his ancestors would have used if they had access to the wealth of color we have today.

He has received nearly 20 awards and commissions and attended over 25 major art shows throughout his artistic career. His art is illustrated on the cover of six books, work is included in numerous private collections as well as public, and has been featured artist in art galleries in New Mexico, Minnesota, Arizona, Colorado, as well as South Dakota. Don has been active in various organizations, and has been the topic of numerous publications and articles. In 1994, the pinnacle of his artistic career was an invitation from the SD School of Mines & Technology SKILL Program, to create a work of art that eventually became a part of the payload aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour.

On March 2, 1995, launched from the Kennedy Space Center, the Endeavor carrying the artwork orbited the earth 262 times at a mean altitude of 190 nautical miles and speed of 17,500 miles per hour, traveling a total of 6,892,836 miles in a 16 day mission.

Primarily a self-taught artist, Montileaux received formal training at the Institute of American Indian Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico and did an internship under noted artist Oscar Howe at the University of South Dakota, Vermillion. He also credits his personal friend and mentor, the late Herman Red Elk, as his primary artistic influence.

Education:

1969-1970 - Black Hills State College, Spearfish, SD
1966-1969 - Institute of American Indian Art, Santa Fe, NM
Graduate 1966 - Rapid City High School, Rapid City, SD

Positions:

1999 to present: Full time Artist. Illustrator, presenter and consultant on Lakota culture
1994-1998 - Rushmore Plaza Civic Center, Rapid City, SD, Assistant Manager
1977-1994 - Rushmore Plaza Civic Center, Rapid City, SD, Dir. of Operations
1976-1977 - United Sioux Tribes, Rapid City, SD, Manpower Representative
1973-1976 - Cultural Enrichment Program, BIA, Title I Project, Cheyenne River
Sioux Tribe, Eagle Butte, SD, Arts & Crafts Teacher

Awards and Commissions:

2004 – German/American Institute, Heidelberg, Germany – promotional artist andpresenter on the Lakota Tipi
2004 – Eiteljorg Museum, Indianapolis, IN – 1st place in 2004 Indian Market
2004 – Red Cloud Art Show, Pine Ridge, SD – Neiderman Award, 1st & 3rd Place
2004 – Artist in Residence, Oglala Lakota College, Kyle, SD
2004 – KILI Radio, Porcupine, SD – calendar artwork
2002 & 2004 – Scholar for Crow Canyon Archaeological Center, Cortez, CO – group tour to areas in Black Hills and Pine Ridge Reservation.
2002 – Promotional artist for Northern Plains Tribal Art Show, Sioux Falls, SD
2003-2004 – Promotional artist for American Indian College Fund – gala fund raising events in Los Angeles, CA and New York
1999 – 2002 - KILI Radio, Porcupine, SD – calendar artwork
2001-2003 – First People's Fund, mentor for emerging artist program
2001-2002 – Big Bat's Convenience Stores, logo design & mural design
2001 - Prairie Winds Casino, Pine Ridge, SD - Mural
2000 - Red Cloud Art Show, 1st Place in Division I (oils, acrylics)

Past Memberships:

SD Arts Council, Board Member – 2004 to present
Crazy Horse Memorial, Board Member – 2004 to present
Dream Catcher's Artist Guild, member

To see a more complete listing of his awards and commissions, major art shows, collections, publications and recognitions, book cover illustrations and galleries and shops please visit

Donald Montileaux
1317 West Blvd
Rapid City, SD

©2004 Wisdom of the Elders