Woody Crumbo

Infobox Person
name = Woodrow "Woody" Crumbo


image_size =
caption = Native American Artist
birth_date = January 21 1912
birth_place = Lexington, Oklahoma
death_date = April 4 1989
death_place =
occupation = Artist
spouse =
parents =
children =

Woodrow "Woody" Crumbo (January 21 1912 – April 4 1989) was a Native American artist, flautist, dancer and prospector born of the Potawatomi tribe whose paintings are exhibited in a number of prominent museums, including the Smithsonian Institute and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.Curtis, Gene. (August 31 2007) [http://www.tulsaworld.com/webextra/itemsofinterest/centennial/centennial_storypage.asp?ID=070831_1_A4_India64333 Only in Oklahoma: Indian artist's prospects panned out] Tulsa World. Accessed September 12 2007.] A 1978 inductee into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame, [ [http://www.oklahomaheritage.com/HallofFame/ByName/tabid/89/Default.aspx Oklahoma Hall of Fame. Directory by name.] Oklahoma Heritage. Accessed September 12 2007.] Crumbo became an "ambassador of good will" for Oklahoma in 1982 under appointment by Governor George Nigh.

Biography

Early life

Born near Lexington, Oklahoma, Crumbo moved to Kansas as a child after the death of his father in 1916. [http://kosharehistory.org/museum/crumbo.html Woodrow "Woody" Crumbo] Koshare Indian Museum. Accessed September 12 2007.] Orphaned in 1919, he spent the rest of his childhood living with various American Indian families around Sand Springs, Oklahoma. When Crumbo was 17, he began studying art at the Chilocco Indian School, also taking up the study of the Kiowa ceremonial wooden flute, an instrument with which he would eventually be spotlighted in performance with the Wichita Symphony. [http://www.theindiancenter.org/Museum/CurrentExhibit.htm Woody Crumbo: a legacy of culture and keeper of the plains] . Mid-America All Indian Center. Accessed September 12 2007.] He earned a scholarship to the Wichita American Indian Institute, graduating as valedictorian to continue his studies at Wichita University and the University of Oklahoma.

Professional career

While studying art, Crumbo supported himself as a Native American dancer, touring reservations across the United States in the early 1930s disseminating and collecting traditional dances. His art career was cemented when his teacher from the Chilocco Indian School sold a number of his painting to the San Francisco Museum of Art. Subsequently, Crumbo joined the Bacone College in Muskogee as "director of art" from 1938-1941 and a few years later curated a collection of Native American art at the Thomas Gilcrease Institute in Tulsa.

In the 1950s, Crumbo bought a $3 mail-order mineral identification kit, with the information from which he took up prospecting with fellow artist Max Evans; the two found deposits of ore worth millions, including a vein of beryllium that the New Mexico School of Mines identified at the time as "among the greatest beryllium finds in the nation." He later served as Assistant Director of the El Paso, Texas Museum of Art from 1960-1967 and briefly as Director in 1968, before leaving to work independently and explore humanitarian efforts.

References