[2] The artists were Spencer Asah, James Auchiah, Jack Hokeah, Stephen Mopope, Monroe Tsatoke and Lois Smoky.
Later in life, San Ildefonso Pueblo potter Maria Martinez adopted him as a son and he lived with her family for a decade in New Mexico.
His father, a buffalo medicine man, provided Asah with the traditional cultural background to inspire his art.
[9] Five of the artists attended the St. Patrick's Mission School in Anadarko, serving Kiowa, Comanche and Apache children.
[10] There, the five Kiowa artists received formal art instruction from a Choctaw nun, Sister Mary Olivia Taylor (1872–1931).
[12] Susie Peters, while working at the Indian Agency, encouraged Oscar Jacobson, the director of the University of Oklahoma's art department to create a special program for the Kiowa artists.
Inspired by the narrative, representational qualities of Plains hide painting and ledger art, the Kiowa Six created a new style of painting that portrayed ceremonial and social scenes of Kiowa life and stories from oral history, which is characterized by solid color fields, minimal backgrounds, a flat perspective, and emphasis on details of dance regalia.