Bosin gained notoriety for his surreal and dynamic variations on the traditional Flatstyle painting of the Southern Plains Indians, and he add depth, motion, and drama to the genre while emphasizing symbolism.
[11] His father, Frank Blackbear, was Kiowa, and his mother, Ada Tivis Bosin, was of the Quahadi (Antelope Eater) band, of the Comanche Nation.
The University of Oklahoma offered him an arts scholarship after graduating high school, but due to his new responsibilities as a husband and a father, he turned it down.
[11]) Before leaving the military, Bosin briefly returned to Wichita to sign divorce papers, which marked the end of his marriage with Johnson.
Bosin permanently returned to Wichita in 1946, where he worked as a color separator and plate maker for Western Lithograph and then as an industrial designer and production illustrator for Boeing-Wichita.
In the same year, he entered the Philbrook Art Center's first Indian Artists Annual, where he won an honorable mention for Green Corn Dance.
[16][11] Bosin's career as an artist began to take off in the early 1950s, beginning in 1950 with a special showing of 66 of his paintings, at the National Museum of Natural History, of the Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, D.C.[11] At the Philbrook's Indian Art Annual in 1952 he was awarded first prize for Death Bird.
[11][17][4] The work, with its vivid depiction of action—Indians on galloping horses, and animals desperately fleeing an oncoming fire—was regarded as a turning point in the field of normally static Plains Indians art.
[4] In 1955, his works were exhibited at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C.[4] In 1955, Wind Spirit, the companion piece to Prairie Fire, was shown at the DeYoung Museum in San Francisco, and then won the Purchase Prize at the Philbrook's Indian Annual.
The following year he traveled to Kreuzlingen, Switzerland, to receive honors after he was elected Fellow of the International Institute of Arts and Letters (IIAL).
In the same year, two of his former entries in the Philbrook's Indian Artist Annual were purchased by the Arts and Crafts Board of the U.S. Department of the Interior.
[11][22] In 1963, the Philbrook hosted another one-man show of Bosin's work and four of his pieces were included in the Heard Museum's Gallery of Indian Art's inaugural exhibition.
After receiving this award, he decided to step back from entering art competitions altogether because he believed it was time for younger artists to gain recognition.
The statue — a 44-foot, 5-ton, Cor-Ten steel sculpture — is a giant, stylized representation of a Native American in historic dress, gesturing to the Great Spirit in the sky, and titled The Keeper of the Plains.
[6][30] Construction of the sculpture began in 1970 and, after multiple financial setbacks, was finally completed in 1974, ostensibly as a commemorative project in preparation for the 1976 United States Bicentennial.
[8] The Keeper has become the focal point of a $20 million river-beautification project, with ornate, symbolic footbridges built to the site, and a park, walkways, gardens and fire pits installed around the statue, which has been mounted on a 30-foot-high rock pedestal jutting out into the river.
[36][37] Months later in September, Bosin had to undergo open heart surgery, which severely set back the progress of the mural.
His recovery was lengthy, and he suffered loss of sight in both eyes that left wide, horizontal fields of darkness across his vision.
To complete the mural on time, his wife and office staff helped paint the basic areas of the work while he filled in the details.
Due to the toll his loss of vision took on his ability to paint quickly, Bosin had to give up gouache in favor of acrylics.
[41] Five months later, on August 9, 1980, Bosin died from heart problems and complications stemming from a severe gall bladder infection.
It was through his observations of historical art forms that he learned how to manipulate bodily proportions, create anatomically correct figures, and emulate the style of the Kiowa Six.
[13] His work became increasingly complex and dynamic, reflecting the influence of surrealists and his incorporation of culturally specific scenes and subject matter.
[46] Bosin also began to include increasingly detailed backgrounds in his paintings that set the tone of the piece and constructed a sense of space.