Louis Akin

Louis Akin (1868 - 1913)

Louis Akin was born and raised in Portland, Oregon, after his grandparents followed the Oregon Trail from Iowa in 1852. The aspiring artist worked initially as a sign painter, saving for a move to New York, where he studied with such well-known artists as William Merritt Chase and Frank Vincent DuMond. Akin arrived in the Southwest in 1903 after William Haskell Simpson, the general advertising agent for the Santa Fe Railroad, offered him transportation to Arizona in exchange for a commitment to paint Hopi Indians. Akin eagerly accepted, and for many months he rented a room in Oraibi pueblo, learning the language and dressing in Indian manner.