SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2022-2024 Robert Houle: Red is Beautiful, Calgary Contemporary, Calgary, Alberta; Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg, Manitoba; The Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, Washington, DC.
2022 Blue Thunder, Central Art Garage, Ottawa, Ontario.
2021 Robert Houle: Red is Beautiful, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Ontario.
2021 The Sandy Bay Residential School Series, School of Art Gallery, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB
2021 Robert Houle: Prelude to Red, Kinsman Robinson Galleries, Toronto, Ontario.
2019-2020 Robert Houle: Histories, McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Kleinburg, Ontario.
2018 Pahgedenaun, Carleton University Art Gallery, Ottawa, Ontario. Exhibition publication.
2016 Robert Houle: Shaman Dream in Colour, Kinsman Robinson Galleries, Toronto, Ontario.
2015 Robert Houle: Obscured Horizons, MacLaren Art Centre, Barrie, Ontario.
2014 Seven Grandfathers, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Ontario.
2012 enuhmo andúhyaun (the road home), School of Art Gallery, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba.
2010–11 Robert Houle’s Paris/Ojibwa, Canadian Cultural Centre, Paris, France, and Art Gallery of Peterborough, Ontario. Toured to Art Gallery of Windsor, Ontario.
2007 Troubling Abstraction: Robert Houle, McMaster Museum of Art, Hamilton, Ontario in collaboration with The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa, Ontario.
2006 Nomenclature: Apache Bombs and Helicopters, Urban Shaman, Winnipeg, Manitoba.
2000–01 Palisade, Carleton University Art Gallery, Ottawa, Ontario.
1999 Robert Houle: Sovereignty over Subjectivity, Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg, Manitoba. Toured to the Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan and Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Toronto, Ontario.
1996 Pontiac’s Conspiracy, Garnet Press Gallery, Toronto, Ontario.
1994 Premises for Self-Rule, Garnet Press Gallery, Toronto, Ontario.
1993 Kanata: Robert Houle’s Histories, Carleton University Art Gallery, Ottawa, Ontario.
1993 Anishnabe Walker Court, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Ontario.
1992 Hochelaga, article, Montréal, and YYZ, Toronto, Ontario.
1991 Lost Tribes, Hood College, Frederick, Maryland.
1990 Robert Houle: Indians from A to Z, Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg, Manitoba. Toured to the Glenbow Museum, Calgary, Alberta; MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina, Saskatchewan; and Museum of Civilization (now Canadian Museum of History), Gatineau, Québec.
1989 Seven in Steel, McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Kleinburg, Ontario.
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2022 Land Protectors, Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Kingston, ON.
2020 Early Days: Indigenous Art at the McMichael, McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Kleinburg, Ontario.
2017 Re:collection, Confederation Centre of the Arts, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island.
2016 Form Follows Fiction: Art and Artists in Toronto, University of Toronto Art Centre, Toronto, Ontario.
2016 Toronto: Tributes + Tributaries, 1971–1989, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto.
2013–14 Before and after the Horizon: Anishinaabe Artists of the Great Lakes, National Museum of the American Indian, New York, New York and Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Ontario.
2013 1992: Robert Houle, Duane Linklater, Nadia Myre, MacLaren Art Centre, Barrie, Ontario.
2013 Sakahàn: International Indigenous Art, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario.
2013 IN/digitized: Indigenous Culture in a Digital World, SAW Gallery, Ottawa, Ontario.
2013 Four Contemporary Artists: Barry Ace, Bonnie Devine, Rosalie Favell, and Robert Houle, Carmel Art Gallery, Ottawa, Ontario.
2012 Changing Hands: Art Without Reservation, Museum of Arts and Design, New York.
2012 Sovereign Acts, Justina M. Barnicke Gallery, Art Museum at the University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario.
2007 Testbed, Nuit Blanche, Ontario College of Art and Design, Toronto, Ontario.
2004 We Come in Peace…: Histories of the Americas, Musée d’art Contemporain de Montréal, Montréal, Québec.
2003 Pathbreakers: Eiteljorg Fellowship for Native American Fine Art, Eiteljorg Museum, Indianapolis, Indiana. Exhibition publication.
2001 Landmark, University of Waterloo Art Gallery in collaboration with the Tom Thomson Art Gallery, Owen Sound, Ontario and The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa, Ontario.
2000 Tout le temps/Every Time: La Biennale 2000, Montréal, Québec.
1996 Real Fictions: Four Canadian Artists, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia.
1995 Notions of Conflict, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
1995 Displaced Histories, Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography, Ottawa, Ontario.
1992 Rethinking History, Mercer Union, Toronto, Ontario.
1990 Why Do You Call Us Indian? Gettysburg College Art Gallery, Pennsylvania. Contemporary Rituals, White Water Gallery, North Bay, Ontario.
1989 Beyond History, Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, British Columbia.
1987 Eight from the Prairies, Part Two, Thunder Bay Art Gallery, Thunder Bay, Ontario and Southwest Museum, Los Angeles, California.
1985 Challenges, de Meervaart Cultural Centre, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
1983 Innovations: New Expressions in Native American Painting, Heard Museum, Phoenix, Arizona.
1982 New Work by a New Generation, MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina, Saskatchewan.
SELECTED WRITINGS BY ROBERT HOULE
“Odjig: An Artist’s Transition.” The Native Perspective 3, no. 2 (1978): 42–46.
“The Emergence of a New Aesthetic Tradition.” In New Work by a New Generation, 2–5. Exhibition publication. Regina: Norman Mackenzie Art Gallery, 1982.
“The Spiritual Legacy of the Ancient Ones.” In Land, Spirit, Power: First Nations at the National Gallery of Canada, edited by Susan McMaster and Claire Rochon. Exhibition publication. Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada, 1992.
“A Context for the Janvier Legacy.” In The Art of Alex Janvier: His First Thirty Years, 1960–1990, by Lee-Ann Martin, 49–65. Exhibition publication. Thunder Bay: Thunder Bay Art Gallery, 1993.
Invitation to the opening of Robert Houle’s first solo exhibition, Parfleches for the Last Supper, 1984, held at the University of Toronto.
“A Context for Haida Abstraction.” In Robert Davidson: The Abstract Edge, edited by Karen Duffek. Exhibition publication. Vancouver: Museum of Anthropology, University of British Columbia, 2004.
“Dibaajimowin/Storytelling.” In Stories from the Shield: Bonnie Devine. Exhibition publication. Brantford: Woodland Cultural Centre, 2004.
“Translation/Transportation.” In Nadia Myre: Cont[r]act, by Joan Reid Acland, Rhonda L. Meir, Robert Houle, and Anne Collett. Exhibition publication. Montreal: Dark Horse Productions, 2004.
“Creating Space within a National Identity.” In Vision, Space, Desire: Global Perspectives and Cultural Hybridity. Washington, D.C.: National Museum of the American Indian, 2006.
“Odjig: A Pictorial Style in Transition.” In The Drawings and Paintings of Daphne Odjig: A Retrospective Exhibition, by Bonnie Devine, 37–42. Exhibition publication. Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada, 2007.
“Poetic Portals of Memory.” In Greg Staats: Reciprocity. Exhibition publication. Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery, 2007.
“Interiority as Allegory.” In Rebecca Belmore: Rising to the Occasion, edited by Daina Augaitis and Kathleen Ritter, 19–23. Exhibition publication. Vancouver: Vancouver Art Gallery, 2008.
“Shape-shifting Images.” In The Colour of My Dreams: The Surrealist Revolution in Art, edited by Dawn Ades, 27–75. Exhibition publication. Vancouver: Vancouver Art Gallery, 2011.
“Bonnie Devine: Land as Metaphor for Survival.” Exhibition catalogue essay for We Are Here: 7th Biennial Eiteljorg Contemporary Art Fellowship, Indianapolis: Eiteljorg Museum, 2011.
“The Beardmore Garden Party.” In Norval Morrisseau 2012 Retrospective. Exhibition publication. Toronto: Kinsman Robinson Galleries, 2012.
“Anishnabe Supernova.” Exhibition catalogue essay for Copper Thunderbird: The Art of Norval Morrisseau, Toronto: Westerkirk Works of Art, 2012.
“Kay WalkingStick: Landscape, the Living Synthesis of Human Presence and Place.” Exhibition catalogue essay for Kay WalkingStick: An American Artist, Washington, D.C.: National Museum of the American Indian, 2013.
COLLECTIONS
Agnes Etherington Art Centre (Kingston, Ontario), Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto, Ontario), Art Gallery of Hamilton (Hamilton, Ontario), Canadian Museum of History (Gatineau,Québec), Carleton University Art Gallery (Ottawa, Ontario), Confederation Centre Art Gallery (Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island), Eiteljorg Museum (Indianapolis, Indiana), The Forks (Winnipeg Art Gallery), Heard Museum (Phoenix, Arizona), Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada (Gatineau,Québec), Laurentian University Museum and Arts Centre (Sudbury, Ontario), Mackenzie Art Gallery (Regina, Saskatchewan), McGill University (Montréal, Québec), McMichael Canadian Art Collection (Kleinburg, Ontario), The Robert McLaughlin Gallery (Oshawa, Ontario), Royal Ontario Museum (Toronto, Ontario), National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa, Ontario) and Winnipeg Art Gallery (Winnipeg, Manitoba).
SELECTED ARTICLES
April 9, 2015. How Robert Houle “decolonized” himself through painting, The Coast Halifax by Hillary Windsor.
August 1, 2014. Robert Houle at the Art Gallery of Ontario: a sort of homecoming, The Toronto Star by Murray Whyte.
September 24, 2013. York Wilson Award Honours Robert Houle’s Residential School Art, Canadian Art by Leah Sandals.
July 27, 2000. Looking for Robert Houle, The Globe & Mail by Sarah Hampson.
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
2021 Red is Beautiful, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Ontario
2020 Artist Spotlight: Robert Houle – The Pines, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Ontario
2020 Artist Spotlight: Robert Houle – Premises for Self-Rule: Constitution Act, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Ontario
2019 Robert Houle: Pahgedenaun. Carleton University Art Gallery, Ottawa, Ontario.
2018 Robert Houle: Life & Work. Art Canada Institute.
2018 Robert Houle: Parflèche | Protecting, Carrying, Defending, Surrey Art Gallery
2016 Robert Houle: Shaman Dream in Colour, Kinsman Robinson Galleries.
2014 Paris/Ojibwa, Art Gallery of Peterborough, Peterborough, Ontario.
2007 Robert Houle: Troubling Abstraction, McMaster Museum of Art, Hamilton, Ontario.
2001 LANDMARK The Paintings of Robert Houle and John Abrams, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario.
2000 Robert Houle’s Palisade, Carleton University Art Gallery, Ottawa, Ontario.
1999 Robert Houle, sovereignty over subjectivity, Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg, Manitoba.
1999 Native American Art in the Twentieth Century: Makers, Meanings, Histories. Routledge.
1995 Crossroads Visualism: Robert Houle. Parachute (Fall): 42–46. Douglas, Susan.
1993 Kanata Robert Houle’s histories, Carleton University Art Gallery, Ottawa, Ontario.
1990 Robert Houle: Indians from A to Z. Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg, Manitoba.
1988 The Struggle Against Cultural Apartheid. Muse 6, no. 3 (1988): 58–63. Hargittay, Clara.
1985 Challenges. National Museum of Man, Hull, Québec and Amsterdam: de Meervaart Cultural Centre. McMaster, Gerald.
1985 I Lost It at the Trading Post. Canadian Art 2, no. 4 (Winter 1985): 33–39. Scott, Jay.
1985 New Visions in Canadian Plains Painting. American Indian Art Magazine (Spring 1985): 46–53. Warner, John Anson.
1978 Robert Houle and the Ojibway Leaves. The Native Perspective 2, no. 10 (1978): 21–23. Musiol, Marie-Jeanne.
AUDIO & VIDEO
Niro, Shelley, writer, producer, and editor. Robert’s Paintings. 2011. Turtle Night Productions. Colour video, 52:00 min.
Roemer, Derreck, director. Robert Houle, Visual Artist. Canada Council for the Arts. Colour video, 4:15 min.
The View from Here: A Canadian Picture Show in Nine Acts. 1997. Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada. Distributed by the National Film Board.
Wasserman, Leslie, producer. The Art of Robert Houle. 2000. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.