Bacone school

The Oklahoma and New Mexico Native American art movements in the first half of the 1900s share similar traits that define the Native American art market, including patronage, mentoring, community-based collectives, and new structures of support through education and museums.{{Cite book|last=Deloria|first=Philip J.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zJeTDwAAQBAJ|title=Becoming Mary Sully Toward an American Indian Abstract|publisher=University of Washington Press|year=2019|isbn=9780295745244|pages=9–10}} The Bacone school art movement was influenced by the Bacone College, as well as art programs of Chilocco Indian School, and Haskell Indian Industrial Training Institute, all of which were located in a similar geographic region. Tribes from the Southeastern, Prairie, and Central Plains regions each have their own historical practices of pictorial representation, whether in carving or painting; however, removal to Indian Territory in the 19th century disrupted many customary art practices. Access to Western art materials (such as easels, watercolors) gave Native artists a new means of self-expression, as well as a new way of recording history and daily practices.

The Bacone style differs from the two other prevalent flat styles of Native American painting in Oklahoma of the time: Kiowa style, and the Studio style.{{Citation needed|date=April 2020}} The "Flatstyle" painting was in part made popular in the 1920s by the Kiowa style (also known as Southern Plains style) of painting by the Kiowa Six, which was rooted in the teachings of Oscar Jacobson at the School of Art at the University of Oklahoma (OU), where he served as director from 1915 to 1945.{{cite news|last1=Broady|first1=Joe|url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/450223050/?terms=%22Oscar%2BJacobson%22|title=OU Art Educator Oscar Jacobson, 84, Dies at Norman|date=September 20, 1966|work=The Daily Oklahoman|access-date=2020-04-24|location=Oklahoma City, Oklahoma|page=40|via=Newspapers.com|url-access=registration}}{{Cite book|last=Neuman|first=Lisa K.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vpDVDwAAQBAJ|title=Indian Play: Indigenous Identities at Bacone College|publisher=U of Nebraska Press|year=2020|isbn=9781496209320|pages=168}} However the Bacone style was specifically different from the Kiowa style because the artists used brighter colors, depicted more movement and action, and included visual perspective.{{Cite book|last=Wyckoff|first=Lydia L.|title=Visions and Voices: Native American Painting from the Philbrook Museum of Art|publisher=Philbrook Museum of Art|year=1996|isbn=978-0866590136|pages=38}} The Southern Plains style had its origins in Plains hide painting and winter counts. {{Citation needed|date=April 2020}}After the decline of buffalo herds in the late 19th century, Plains painting shifted to Ledger art, which, under the stewardship of such artists as Silver Horn (1860/1–1940, Kiowa), evolved into easel art.{{Citation needed|date=April 2020}}

The Studio style, as taught at the Santa Fe Indian School, first by Dorothy Dunn and later by Gerónima Cruz Montoya (Ohkay Owingeh), built upon the accomplishments of the San Ildefonso school of painters and Hopi painters such as Fred Kabotie, who were successful "Flatstyle" easel artists in the 1910s and 1920s in Arizona and New Mexico.{{Citation needed|date=April 2020}} These artists were inspired by Pueblo mural painting and pottery painting traditions. Their work often features pastoral scenes in muted colors.{{Dead link|date=April 2020}} Collectively, these three Flatstyle movements were sometimes derided by Native artists in the 1960s as "Bambi Art," which has been criticized as nostalgic, sentimental, and limited in scope.Morand et al. 105

Acee Blue Eagle (Muscogee Creek) was a student at Chilocco Indian School{{Cite web|url=https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=BL013|title=Blue Eagle, Acee|website=The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture|access-date=2020-04-24}} and a student of Oscar Jacobson's at OU;{{Cite web|url=https://postalmuseum.si.edu/indiansatthepostoffice/mural3.html|title=Chickasaw Family Making Pah Sho Fah (Pashofa) {{!}} National Postal Museum|website=Smithsonian National Postal Museum|access-date=2020-04-24}} he helped shape the Bacone style.

The first Bacone College's art department director was musician/storyteller Mary "Ataloa" Stone McLendon, and between 1932 until 1935, she had built the structure that later became an early classroom for the art department (and is now named the Ataloa Lodge Museum).{{Cite book|last1=Lawson|first1=Russell M.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ou6yDwAAQBAJ|title=Race and Ethnicity in America: From Pre-contact to the Present [4 volumes]|last2=Lawson|first2=Benjamin A.|date=2019-10-11|publisher=ABC-CLIO|isbn=978-1-4408-5097-4|pages=17|language=en}} She was followed by Blue Eagle serving as the second director from 1935 to 1939.{{Cite web|title=Ataloa (Mary Stone McLendon)|url=https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=AT007|access-date=2020-06-22|website=www.okhistory.org|publisher=The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture|quote=This paved the way for a new style of American Indian art, the Bacone School of traditional Indian art, or simply the Baconian style. She was the first director of the art department, and she bequeathed the title to Acee Blue Eagle at her departure in 1935. In later years, the art lodge was renamed Ataloa Lodge Museum in honor of its founder.}}{{Cite web|last1=Brewer|first1=Graham Lee|last2=Tulsa|date=2019-07-21|title=Can Bacone College reclaim its roots as a center for Native art?|url=https://www.hcn.org/issues/51.12/education-can-bacone-college-reclaim-its-roots-as-a-center-for-native-art|access-date=2020-06-22|website=www.hcn.org|language=en-us}} Woody Crumbo (Potawatomi) succeeded him in 1938.Silberman 86 The year 1938 is given by artist Ruthe Blalock Jones (Shawnee/Delaware/Peoria) as the date the Bacone School of Indian Painting was established,Wyckoff 55 although some would say it should be 1935.Parker, Gerri. [http://faculty.deanza.edu/parkergerri/stories/storyReader$216 "Native American Art in Oklahoma: The Kiowa and Bacone Artists."] DeAnza College. 27 July 2004 (retrieved 8 Nov 2009)

Both Blue Eagle's and Crumbo's styles were also influenced by the streamlined, bold look of Art Deco. Casein on illustration board was a popular medium, as well as gouache and watercolor. Technical skill in draftsmanship was emphasized, as was the ethnographic accuracy of subjects portrayed. Paintings were aesthetically pleasing, with contours of a certain hue often surrounded by outlines of lighter tints, to emphasize the spiritual nature of the subject. Figures were brilliantly colored with backgrounds of a "subdued palettes of greens, blues, and browns," as Ruthe Blalock Jones writes.Wyckoff 54 Blue, in particular, is a color representing sorrow, loss, and memory for some Southeastern tribes, and is often a preferred background color. Implied narrative gave the Bacone style a sense of drama.

The Philbrook Museum of Art of Tulsa, Oklahoma helped foster the development of the Bacone style with its Indian Annual competitive art show from 1947 to 1957.Wyckoff 40 The Five Civilized Tribes Museum of Muskogee, Oklahoma and the Cherokee Heritage Center of Park Hill, Oklahoma both host annual arts shows with categories specifically for this style of art (the Cecil Dick award and the Jerome Tiger award, respectively). The Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma and National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City have extensive collections of Bacone School art.

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• Archie Blackowl, Southern Cheyenne
• Fred Beaver, Muscogee Creek/SeminoleSilberman 52
• Acee Blue Eagle, Muscogee Creek{{cite web |last1=Anthony Jr. |first1=Alexander E. |title=Acee Blue Eagle, Creek Artist |url=https://www.adobegallery.com/artist/Acee_Blue_Eagle_1909_1959111397376 |publisher=Adobe Gallery |access-date=18 November 2020}}
• Woody Crumbo, Citizen PotawatomiMorand et al 110
• John Gritts, Cherokee Nation
• Franklin Gritts, Cherokee
• Albert Harjo, Muscogee Creek
• Joan Hill, Muscogee Creek/CherokeeSilberman, 106
• Ruthe Blalock Jones, Shawnee/Peoria
• Barbara McAlister, Cherokee Nation
• Solomon McCombs, Muscogee Creek
• Jackson Narcomey, Muscogee Creek
• Terry Saul, Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma
• Jerome Tiger, Muscogee Creek/SeminoleMorand et al 111
• Dick West, Southern Cheyenne

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• Native American art
• List of Native American artists from Oklahoma

{{reflist|2}}

• Morand, Anne, Kevin Smith, Daniel C. Swan, and Sarah Erwin. Treasures of Gilcrease: Selections from the Permanent Collection. Tulsa, OK: Gilcrease Museum, 2003. {{ISBN|978-0-8061-9955-9}}.
• {{Cite book|last=Silberman|first=Arthur|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=I_c2AQAAIAAJ|title=100 years of native American painting, March 5-April 16, 1978, the Oklahoma Museum of Art, Oklahoma City|publisher=Oklahoma Museum of Art|year=1978|type=exhibition publication}}
• Wyckoff, Lydia L., ed. Visions and Voices: Native American Painting from the Philbrook Museum of Art. Tulsa, OK: Philbrook Museum of Art, 1996. {{ISBN|0-86659-013-7}}.

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Category:Bacone College

Category:Native American painting

Category:American art movements

Category:Art in Oklahoma