Wičhápi Cik’ala – Little Star
Born: May 3, 1946, Omaha, NE
Died: February 7, 1999, Vermillion, SD
Robert (Bobby) Penn is a Sicangu Lakota/Omaha artist whose work spanned different media and styles, blending Native themes with modern abstraction. The deeply spiritual artist attributed his talent to a gift from Wakan Tanka (Great Spirit) given to use, explore and develop.
Penn was born on May 3, 1946, in Omaha, Nebraska to Arthur Penn and Cornelia Steed-Penn. His father was an enrolled member of the Omaha Tribe and his mother was an enrolled member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe.
Penn experienced a challenging early life, becoming a ward of the state at age eight and attending boarding schools at St. Augustine on the Winnebago Reservation and St. Francis Mission of South Dakota’s Rosebud Reservation.
In 1966, he received a scholarship to Oscar Howe’s summer workshops at the University of South Dakota where the renowned Yanktonai Dakota Oscar Howe artist became his mentor. He earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of South Dakota (USD), Vermillion, SD in 1972 where he was also a work-study assistant to Howe.
After graduation, Penn became an illustrator for the University of South Dakota School of Medicine and later taught art at various schools and colleges like Sinte Gleska University in Mission, SD. Penn pursued painting full-time in 1986 from a studio in a historic farmhouse near Vermillion, SD and was an outstanding artist in his own right.
He was a master of acrylic, oil, drawing, and printmaking that reflects his Omaha and Sicangu Lakota heritage, South Dakota landscapes, personal narratives, and his totem, the crow (representing adaptability and survival while rejecting restrictive “traditional” Indigenous art conventions influenced by Howe’s philosophy).
Penn was the primary instructor in 1991 for the revived Oscar Howe Summer Art Institute workshop at USD, an honor marking the program’s return since Howe’s death in 1983. He has had more than a dozen exhibitions to his credit and his work has won prizes at the Colorado Indian Market and the Northern Plains Tribal Arts Exhibition.
His work is part of many collections including the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C.; the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, MN; the Vincent Price Gallery in Chicago, IL; and the Akta Lakota Museum at St. Joseph’s Indian School, Chamberlain, SD.
An accomplished muralist, he has completed four commissions including those at USD, the Denver Airport, four paintings at the hospital entrance at the Rosebud Health Facility and the W. H. Over Museum.
Penn experienced a battle with lung disease that led to his death on February 7, 1999 at age 52 in Vermillion, SD. Penn was posthumously inducted into the South Dakota Hall of Fame in 1998, and his legacy endures through advancing Indigenous artistic expression, teaching future generations, and preserving cultural narratives amid personal hardships.