The Flute Dance (722) by Woody Crumbo
Woodrow “Woody” Crumbo, Potawatomi
1912-1989
Woody Crumbo was an artist, Native American flute player, and dancer who lived and worked mostly in the West of the United States.
His paintings are in the Smithsonian Institution, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Thomas Gilcrease Institute in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Woody Crumbo was inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame in 1978 for his paintings. He served as an “ambassador of good will” for Oklahoma, appointed in 1982 by Governor George Nigh.
Peace Offering (812) by Woody Crumbo
While studying art in Kansas and Oklahoma during the 1930s, Crumbo supported himself as a Native American dancer, performing on reservations across the United States. He was a conduit – collecting and exhibiting traditional dances.
To see more detail about the dances that are shown in the slide show below, click here.
He became the Director of Art at the Bacone College in Muskogee, Oklahoma from 1938-1941, succeeding Acee Blue Eagle.
The Shield Dance by Acee Blue Eagle
In 1939, the U. S. Department of the Interior commissioned him to paint murals on the walls of its building in Washington D. C. His “peyote bird” design became the logo for the Gilcrease Museum.
Peyote Bird by Woody Crumbo
From 1948 to 1960, Woody Crumbo lived in Taos, New Mexico. It is there he began making multiple “originals” using engraving, printing, silkscreen.
Paula
Native American Jewelry Tips 