Earl Biss Dies; Prominent Indian Artist Was Noted For Oil Paintings

SANTA FE, N.M. - Earl Biss, a prominent American Indian artist whose oil paintings hang in museums around the world, died Sunday of a stroke in Santa Fe. He was 51.

He was a student of American Indian artists Alan Houser and Charles Loloma and a contemporary of T.C. Cannon, Kevin Red Star and Doug Hyde.

Mr. Biss was born Sept. 29, 1947, in Renton, Wash., and was taken six days later to the Crow nation in Montana, where he was raised by his grandmother.

He was a descendant of Chief White Man Runs Him, who was contracted by the U.S. government to track the Sioux for Gen. George Custer. The Sioux were enemies of the Crow, so his task was considered a great honor.

When Mr. Biss was 8, he was taken out of school after coming down with rheumatic fever. His father later enrolled him in his first oil-painting classes.

"He took to oils like a duck to water," said his wife, Lou Lou Goss.

Mr. Biss received a scholarship to the Institute of American Indian Arts, where he studied jewelry and three-dimensional art from 1963-65. After graduation, he received a scholarship to the San Francisco Art Institute, where he studied oil painting.

Mr. Biss traveled to Europe, studying in Amsterdam and Rome and picking up painting techniques from traditional masters. He also studied art in the Mediterranean.

He was a strong advocate of oil paintings, once saying, "Ninety-nine percent of the artists in the United States don't really know oil painting, and if an artist doesn't paint in oils, then he isn't a real artist."