Browse: Native American Artists
Thomas Gilcrease sought to tell the story of America through art with an emphasis on Native American cultures. The museum founder’s fundamental interest in Native cultures was due in part to his own Muscogee ancestry. Evidence of his interest is illustrated by the amount of Native art and cultural items he gathered. He was also patron to numerous artists of his time and purchased over 500 paintings by 20th-century Native artists. As a result, the museum not only tells the story of Native Americans through exhibition of objects thousands of years old, but also through modern paintings and sculptures.
Browse: The Kiowa Six: Painting Oral Histories
Browse: Indigenous Artists
Seminole Making Sofkey
Prominent artist Fred Beaver was known for combining Flatstyle and modernist painting styles to create visually detailed, historically accurate portrayals of traditional Seminole and Muscogee culture, and Seminole Making Sofkey is an excellent example of his celebration of everyday Indigenous life. Like most Flatstyle painters, Beaver is a narrator, and he uses his brush to tell a story, share a memory, or relive a moment. Here we see Seminole men and women engaged in the collective labor of making sofkey (also spelled sofke), which is “a meat and vegetable stew made thick with hominy or crushed corn.”1
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Prayer to the Sun
Sculptor, muralist, and painter Parker Boyiddle Jr. was educated by artists such as Allan C. Houser (1914–1944) and Fritz Scholder (1937–2005) at the Institute of American Indian Arts (Santa Fe, New Mexico). He is recognized for his use of symbolism to portray oral histories and lore. In this work, a Kiowa man offers a prayer to the sun. Boyiddle’s two-dimensional paintings frequently reference three-dimensional sculptural techniques, seen here in the subject’s dynamic pose as well as the transitions between light and shadow, especially in the folds of the cloak. This narrative painting underlines the relationships between active prayer, horse traditions, and the American bison within Indigenous Plains cultures.
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Cactus Flower
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Eagle Dancer
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Keeper of the Fire
“When some of the Southeastern Indians were removed into Oklahoma, they would bring an ember from the ceremonial fire, keep it alive, and bring it into the ceremonial ground that they established here. . . You have someone that keeps the fire and makes sure that it never goes out. Each time a ceremony is performed, they take an ember and relight the fire.”
—Benjamin Harjo Jr., July 27, 2021
How the Boy Medicine Came to the Kiowas
How the Boy Medicine Came to the Kiowas by Jimalee Chitwood Burton references the cosmological frameworks of the Kiowa (Cáuigù)1 worldview, and tells the story of Záidètàlyì (Sun Boy Medicine). For her tapestry-like narrative, Burton appropriates a combination of symbols (pictorial and figurative) from various Great Plains and Southwest Indigenous nations, transposing them onto canvas in an amalgamation of storytelling sequences. The tale begins in the center of the painting, where a beautiful woman climbs a tree. She is following the Sun’s son, who is disguised as a porcupine. In the story, the tree continues to grow as the woman climbs up, and it gets so tall that it transports her to the upper world. The painting is separated into distinct sections containing four composite images representing different episodes in the Záidètàlyì story. Burton’s depiction represents one of several known variations that have been passed from one generation to the next, primarily through oral histories.
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APR '55
The artwork of Bobby C. Martin, of the Muscogee Nation, often explores multilayered concepts of Indigenous identity through nonlinear time frames. The artist’s iconic aesthetic of superimposed historical imagery, frequently featuring his personal collection of family photographs, invites viewers to interpret his works through multiple lenses.
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Ceramic bottle
Black on Red Jar (Olla) -- Made by Quinchawa/Annie (ca. 1884-1968), daughter of Hopi-Tewa artist Nampeyo (ca. 1860-1942). Enscribed in ink on bottom: “Made by daughter of Nampeyo Truiz, 1st Mesa, Ariz., 1912”.
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