(1951 - Present )

The pictograph has a history dating back to 3,000 BC in traditional cultures. Randy Lee White depicts images of Native American people with abstractions of decorative pictographs expressing narratives about hunting, war, domestic life, and death. Mythical creatures suggest spirits of old, as do Indigenous American symbolic objects and fetishes. White is an expert on many subjects related to his heritage as a South Dakota Sioux and his affinity for pictographs. Although White, (who was born Whitehorse, but dropped the “horse” as many Native Americans of his generation did), uses a variety of media in his art. The constant ingredient is the use of pictographs to relate history and to enlighten the viewer. 

Collections including White’s work are at The Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C. ;the Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois; the Heard Museum in Phoenix, Arizona; the Museum of Fine Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico and the US Department of State.

White’s goals and aspirations for his art are ambitious. He wants to educate, enlighten, entertain, and keep the art form of pictographs alive for future generations: “I want my art to be a bridge builder, gap filler between discontent and understanding, between assumption and real knowledge, between pictograph and abstract, between a dying art form and a living breathing art form.”

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