UCO Archives Online Exhibits

Native American Artists from Oklahoma: a Brief History and Bibliography

The primary focus of this presentation is the role played by prominent Native American artists from Oklahoma in the evolution of Native American art from the emergence of the Kiowa Six in the 1920’s to the passage of the Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990. 

The History of the Kiowa Six

Oscar B. Jacobson and five of the Kiowa Six artists -- Image Courtesy of the Dickinson Research Center, National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.

Spencer Asah, one of the Kiowa Six, was born near Carnegie, Oklahoma, and was the grandson of a Buffalo Medicine man.

Raised in a community steeped in Kiowa ritual and traditions, Asah used brilliant colors to depict Kiowa dancers and scenes from Kiowa life.

In addition to painting vibrant images of individual dancers, Asah participated in the painting of murals.  His paintings capture in meticulous detail the dramatic regalia worn by the dancers he depicts.

Like Spencer Asah, James Achiah was one of the Kiowa Six.  He joined the other Kiowa artists at the University of Oklahoma in the fall of 1927.

Auchiah excelled in art from an early age; however, in elementary  school,  he attempted to conceal his efforts to draw and paint because these activities were not allowed in Indian schools at that time. 

Auchiah continued to paint throughout his life, though not as a career artist. The imagery and designs in his later artwork were inspired by  traditions found in Native American peyote religion.

Jack Hokea was born in 1901 in western  Oklahoma.  He was orphaned at a very  young age and  raised by his grandmother.  One of his grandfathers was the Kiowa warrior White Horse. Like the other artists in the Kiowa Six, Hokeah studied art at the University of Oklahoma under the direction of Oscar  Jacobson.

In addition to his gifts as an artist, Hokeah was an avid  and talented ceremonial dancer and singer, and the images  in his paintings include depictions of dancing and other  ceremonial occasions.

In 1930, at the Gallup  Inter-Tribal Indian Ceremonial Dances, Hokeah met the famous  San Ildefonso Pueblo potter, Maria Martinez.  He often stayed with her family over the years and he, alone of the Kiowa Six, studied at the Studio in Santa Fe Indian School. 

Stephen Mopope was the oldest of the Kiowa Six, and the most prolific. Mopope’s great uncles, Silver Horn and Oheltoint, were accomplished artists who taught him to paint on hides in the traditional Kiowa manner. Six, Mopope attended St. Patrick’s Mission School in Anadarko and later studied art at the University of Oklahoma’s Indian Art Program under the direction of Oscar Jacobson. 

Mopope, along with fellow Kiowa  artist James Auchiah, was one of six  Indian artists commissioned to paint  murals in a new federal building for the U.S. Department of the Interior in Washington, D. C.

Stephen Mopope’s paintings are held in the  collections  of the Gilcrease Museum, the Philbrook Museum of Art, the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, the Heard Museum in Phoenix, and the Museum of the American Indian in New York.

Mopope’s colorful paintings vibrantly depict

cultural aspects of Kiowa life.

Monroe Tsatoke, whose Kiowa name means “Hunting Horse”, was the son of a Kiowa scout.  Tsatoke’s grandmother was a European-American captive. Tsatoke was one of the most prolific and skilled artists of the Kiowa Six.  Like the other members of the group, he studied art at the University of Oklahoma under the direction of Oscar Jacobson, but he also studied art at Bacone College. 

By 1934, when Tsatoke was commissioned to paint several murals for the Oklahoma Historical Society, he had been diagnosed with tuberculosis.  During this time, he joined the Peyote faith of the Native American Church and began to incorporate symbols from the religion into his paintings.

Tsatoke died of tuberculosis in 1937 at the age of thirty-two.  He was the first member of the Kiowa Six to pass away. 

Louise “Lois” Smokey, whose Kiowa name meant “Of the Dawn,” was born in 1907 near Anadarko, Oklahoma.  She was the youngest member of the Kiowa Six, and the only female in the group.  Lois Smokey’s painting during the time she was a member of the Kiowa Six represented a breakthrough for Southern Plains Indian women artists.  Traditionally, Plains Indian women had only painted geometric designs.  Smokey was the first female in Oklahoma Indian history to paint the human figure.  

“Ceremonial Dance” by Lois Smoky Kaulaity

Smokey’s paintings resemble those of the other Kiowa Six artists during their time at the University of Oklahoma.  Like the paintings done by the other members of the group, Smokey’s paintings feature minimal backgrounds and focus on individual figures or small groups of people. Smoky emphasized details of traditional clothing and regalia  and she painted Kiowa people attending to daily life or ceremonial pursuits.

Lois Smokey returned to Kiowa homelands after only a few short years of painting.  She married, raised a family and became a well-known beadwork artist. 

Acee Blue Eagle was a Creek-Pawnee artist and educator who was born Alex McIntosh near Anadarko on August 17, 1909.  Blue Eagle studied at Haskell Institute, Lawrence, Kansas, and the government boarding school at Chilocco, Oklahoma, earning a high school diploma in 1928.  After graduating from Chilocco, he entered Bacone Indian College at Muskogee and later enrolled in classes at the University of Oklahoma.

At the University of Oklahoma Blue Eagle became a serious artist under the guidance of Dr. Oscar B. Jacobson. 

Blue Eagle became well known for painting large interior murals, including work he did for the Federal Art Project in 1934. The PWAP murals he painted  at various Oklahoma colleges included one in the auditorium of Central State College  (now University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond). 

In 1935, Blue Eagle was invited to give a series of lectures on American Indian art at Oxford University in England.  Returning home, Blue Eagle joined the art department at Bacone College in 1935, served as head of the department from 1935 through 1938 and helped shaped the development of the Bacone style of painting. 

The Bacone style of painting in Acee Blue Eagle’s art is a  "Flatstyle" similar to that found in the art of the Kiowa Six.  It differed from the Kiowa style because the artist used brighter colors, depicted more movement and action, and included visual perspective.  Blue Eagle's style, which is notable for the ethnographic accuracy of the  subjects he portrayed, was influenced by the streamlined, bold look of Art Deco. 

Following three years of military service  during World War II, Blue Eagle joined the  art staff of Oklahoma State University  Technological School in Okmulgee.  He was in residence there until his death on June 18, 1959. He was buried in the U.S. National Cemetery at Fort Gibson. 

Solomon McCombs, a Native American painter and muralist from Oklahoma, was born in Eufaula, Oklahoma in 1913.  McCombs, who was a cousin of Acee Blue Eagle, attended Bacone College, where hestudied with Blue Eagle and Mary Stone McLendon.

At Bacone, he developed a style of painting that incorporated traditional Native American  symbols and designs into a "Flatstyle" of painting using outlined shapes and natural  colors.

In 1941, McCombs’ work was in an exhibition  at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City and in 1942 the U.S. Treasury Section of Fine Arts commissioned McCombs  to paint a mural at the Marietta, Oklahoma  Post Office. 

 Starting in 1956, McCombs became an illustrator for the United States Department of State and in this position traveled the  Middle East, Africa, and India to give lectures  about Native American art and his work. 

In 1965, McCombs won the Waite Phillips Trophy for Outstanding Contributions  to American Indian Art, presented by the Philbrook  Museum of Art. 

McCombs retired from working for the federal government in 1973  and in 1978 was elected Second Chief of the Creek Nation. He died on November 18, 1980, and was buried in Eufaula, Oklahoma.

Woody Crumbo was born in 1912 near  Lexington, Oklahoma.  Orphaned at an early age, he spent his childhood living with various American Indian families around Sand Springs, Oklahoma.

At age 17, he began studying art at the Chilocco Indian Agricultural School.  After graduation, he continued his art education at Wichita University and at the University of Oklahoma under the direction of Oscar Jacobson. 

Crumbo joined the Bacone College in Muskogee as Director of Art from 1938-1941, succeeding Acee Blue Eagle.

In 1939, the U. S. Department of the Interior, which includes the Bureau of Indian Affairs as one of its constituent agencies, commissioned him to paint murals on the walls of its building in Washington D. C.

From 1948 to 1960, Crumbo lived in Taos, New Mexico. He exhibited at numerous shows and became more widely known both nationally and internationally because he adapted some of his work to techniques of engraving and printing, making multiple originals.

 In 1973 he took up residence near Checotah, Oklahoma, where he continued to create and to promote Native American art. In 1978, he was inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame.  He moved to Cimarron, New Mexico in 1988, and died there in 1989. His body was returned for burial in Okmulgee, Oklahoma.

Cecil Dick  was a well-known Cherokee artist often  referred to as "the Father of Cherokee Traditional Art".

Cecil was one of the pioneers of 20th-century flat-style painting among Eastern Woodland tribes in Oklahoma. During childhood, he spoke only the Cherokee language. He became an orphan when he was 12 years old and was raised in Indian boarding schools. He attended "The Studio" at the Santa Fe Indian School and Bacone College.

Cecil Dick became the first Native American to win the Oklahoma Artists Exhibition at Philbrook Museum of Art  in Tulsa. 

In 1983 Cecil was honored for his  intellectual and artistic achievements  with the Sequoyah Medal by the Cherokee Nation. In the same year, the Cherokee Heritage Association held a 50-year retrospective exhibition of his lifetime work. 

Cecil was living in Tahlequah, Oklahoma at the time of his death in 1992. He spent over 50 years recording Cherokee culture and history in his art. 

T. C. Cannon was a Kiowa and Caddo artist known for  creating a revolutionary new phase in Native American art  that depicted native Americans as living individuals in the modern world rather than decorative figures portrayed in idealized images of traditional Native American culture.

Cannon was born on September 27, 1946, in Lawton, Oklahoma.  In 1964 he enrolled in the Institute of American  Indian Arts (IAIA)  in Santa Fe, where he studied painting  with Fritz Scholder. 

After graduating from IAIA, Cannon enlisted in the army and served as a paratrooper in the 101st Airborne Division in Vietnam from 1967 to 1968.

Following his discharge from the army, Cannon finished a Bachelor of Arts degree at Central State University (now the University of Central Oklahoma) in Edmond in 1972. 

Also in 1972, Cannon and Fritz Scholder  had a two-man  exhibition titled “Two American Painters” at the  Smithsonian Institution's National Collection of Fine Arts.  In the exhibition, Cannon and Scholder recast the concept of “Indian”  into one that represents an artistic vision of Native American people within the context of both  traditional and contemporary culture. 

Cannon’s  artistic works, with his bold brushstrokes, blocks of vibrant colors and extraordinary imagery represent a turning point of Indian painting  in post–World War II America. His fearless departures from previous American Indian art contributed significantly to redefining Native art as well as the view many people had of Native America.

Cannon created more than 80 works during his short lifetime, including paintings, woodblock prints and linocuts and dozens of poems and songs.  At age 31, a car accident in Santa Fe, N.M., ended his life on May 8, 1978. 

Ruthe Blalock Jones is an Indian artist of Shawnee-Delaware-Peoria descent.  At age ten she was a student under Charles Banks Wilson, and at age 15 she won an honorable mention at the Philbrook Art Museum’s annual show. She earned an associate degree from Bacone College in 1970, and a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Tulsa in 1972. In 1985 she attended the University of Oklahoma and received her master's degree from Northeastern State University in 1989. 

Jones has worked in a variety of media, including oil, acrylic, watercolor, and pen and ink. She generally adheres to a traditional two-dimensional "flat" style, with images placed in negative space or blank background.

The subjects Jones depicts in her paintings derive from her personal experiences, and she concentrates on painting Indian women in dance attire. She often places them  in one of various ceremonial or spiritual contexts, such as powwows, stomp dances, and meetings of the Native American Church. 

 Jones began teaching art at Bacone College in 1979.  She is Director Emeritus of the college and an Associate  Professor of Art. 

Bibliography: Books about Native American Art  in UCO Chambers Library Archives & Special Collections 

Bibliography: Books about Native American Art  in UCO Chambers Library Archives & Special Collections 

Bibliography: Books about Native American Art  in UCO Chambers Library Archives & Special Collections 

The sources listed in the bibliography of this presentation may be accessed in the UCO Archives and Special Collections Department on the second floor north of the Max Chambers  Library.