Curated by Matthew D. Davids, administrator of art collections
The 39 pieces in this exhibit at The Wigwam Gallery feature the art of Woodrow “Woody” Crumbo as he tells the visual story of his Native American people.
He was a member of what is now known as the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, and his art explores the traditions and ceremonies of his own tribe and those of the Creek, Sioux and Kiowa nations.
The exhibit from NBC Oklahoma's collection includes Crumbo’s etchings, serigraphs and a painting.
SEE IT IN ALTUS, OK, BY APPOINTMENT
Contact: Matthew D. Davids, NBC Oklahoma’s administrator of art collections and Wigwam Gallery curator, mdavids@nbcok.com or (580) 477-1100.
“Half of my life passed in striving to complete the pictorial record of Indian history, religion, rituals, customs, way of life, and philosophies . . .
a graphic record that a million words could not begin to tell."
— artist Woodrow “Woody” Crumbo
BIOGRAPHY
Born in 1912, near Lexington, Oklahoma, Woodrow “Woody” Wilson Crumbo was a Potawatomi Indian known primarily as a printmaker and painter. He was also a ceremonial dancer, flutist, sculptor, jewelry maker, teacher and entrepreneur, having owned a print shop and etching and ore-mining businesses. He died in 1989.
Crumbo’s parents died when he was young, and he didn’t resume his education until he was 17 and enrolled in the Chilocco Indian School to study history, art and anthropology.
His art teacher encouraged his traditional art style, and he started making and playing the wood flute of the Kiowas, his school friends.
Later he attended the American Indian Institute in Wichita, Kan., Wichita University and the University of Oklahoma, studying different art techniques, including painting and drawing with OU’s Oscar Brousse Jacobson.
Afterwards, Crumbo served as the director of the Bacone Art School for several years, bringing with him the “Kiowa Style” of painting taught at the University of Oklahoma.
Thomas Gilcrease, namesake of the Tulsa museum and institute, hired Crumbo to work for the institute in the 1940s to assemble an American Indian art collection. The two became friends, and Gilcrease gave Crumbo the nickname “Woody.” Crumbo’s painting “Peyote Bird” inspired an earlier version of the Gilcrease Museum’s logo.
WORKS
Crumbo’s works are in museums, galleries and private collections, including at:
The Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa
University of Oklahoma, Norman
The Smithsonian Institution, Washington
Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
U.S. Department of the Interior
Museum of Modern Art in New York
England’s Queen Elizabeth