Dick West, as he was commonly known, was born on September 8, 1912, in a tipi near the Darlington Agency in Oklahoma. His father was Lightfoot West. West's mother was Rena Flying Coyote, also known as Emily Black Wolf, whose parents were Big Belly Woman and Thunder Bull. West's Cheyenne name, Wapah Nahyah, means "Lightfooted Runner." West attended Concho Indian Boarding School and then Haskell Institute in Lawrence, Kansas, when it was still a high school. West graduated from high school in 1935. One of his earliest artistic mentors was the Arapaho painter, Carl Sweezy. From 1936 to 1938, West attended Bacone College in Muskogee, Oklahoma, where he earned an AA degree. At Bacone, West studied under the celebrated Muscogee-Pawnee-Wichita artist, Acee Blue Eagle. As a young man, West played football and worked in oil fields. At the University of Oklahoma, West earned a BFA degree in 1941 and an MFA degree in 1950. While at OU, he studied under the Swedish artist Oscar Jacobson, who mentored the Kiowa Six. West felt that Jacobson's active support of Native Americans helped him cope with widespread racial prejudice that he encountered in Norman. In 1941 and 1942, West moved to Phoenix, Arizona, where he studying mural painting under Olle Nordmark, a Swedish sculptor. West then continued his post-graduate studies at Northeastern State University, University of Tulsa, and Redlands College. In 1940, West married Maribelle McCrea. In 1970, he married his second wife, Rene Wagoner. He had two sons, W. Richard West Jr. and James Lee West.
Dick West was a master of flat-style painting, that drew upon the pictorial and narrative aspects of Plains hide painting. Flat style painting frequently portrays tribal dances and histories. His works portrayed Cheyenne culture, as informed by his highly traditional upbringing. A complete departure from that style was West's Indian Christ series, which were lush, allegorical oil paintings of New Testament stories with Native American figures, set in the Southern Plains. Through this series, West wanted to portray the universality of Jesus. Although flat-style is what he is best known for, West also painted abstract and highly stylized works in oil, watercolor, tempera, and gouache. He illustrated four books and also sculpted in wood and metal.
''he Indian artist must be allowed freedom to absorb influences outside of his own art forms and see the promise of a new lane of expression that should keep the Indian's art the art form termed 'native Indian painting,' and I give my student every opportunity to execute it... I have always felt that the term abstraction has been a part of the Indian's artistic thinking longer than most European contemporary influences and perhaps in a form..." —Dick West, 1955
