Exhibition to Explore Life, Legacy of American Master Artist Allan Houser
November 21, 2009 - March 21, 2010

Unconquered: Allan Houser and the Legacy of One Apache Family is a rare look at the life and heritage of one of the world’s premier sculpture artists.

The exhibition, open now through March 21, 2010 at Gilcrease Museum, is comprised of more than 200 items including paintings, sculpture, ethnographic objects, and personal effects from the his studio. While Houser is largely known for his monumental stone and bronze sculpture, the exhibition includes more than 50 paintings–many from the Gilcrease permanent collection. These two—dimensional works demonstrate Houser’s affinity for experimentation with both perspective and technique.

Allan Houser is widely recognized as one of the most significant American artists of the 20th century. Houser’s work spans six decades with styles ranging from dramatic realism to abstract geometric forms. His artwork has long been admired for its unique expositions of the human condition.

Houser’s art features recurring themes of mother and child, warriors on horseback, and Apache fire dancers and his work is held in museums, civic centers, and private collections around the globe, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the British Royal Collection, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C., and the Linden Museum in Stuttgart, Germany.

Early Days
Born Allan Capron Haozous in 1914 to the Warm Springs band of the Chiricahua Apaches near Fort Sill, Okla. His father, Sam Haozous, was a nephew of Geronimo and a grandson of famed Apache leader Mangas Coloradas. Allan was born four years later, the first Indian child born after the “Fort Sill” Chiricahuas were released after 27 years of captivity.

Houser was raised on the Haozous family farm near Apache, Okla. As a boy, he was always interested in drawing and carving. In 1934, at the age of 20, he left home to study painting at the Santa Fe Indian School in New Mexico. There Houser (who uses the Anglicized version of his Apache name) received the basics in art training and was encouraged to pursue traditional Native American subjects and styles. As he developed his skills, however, Houser began to pursue his own interests and approaches toward artistic expression.

In 1939 he married Anna Marie Gallegos and eventually they moved their growing family to Los Angeles. While working as a pipe-fitter in Los Angeles, Houser was exposed to works by some of the world’s leading artists including Constantin Brancusi, Jean Arp and Henry Moore.

Commissioned Work, International Acclaim
Houser received commissions from the Federal Works Progress Administration and the Interior Department, painting a series of murals for the U.S. Department of the Interior in Washington, D.C. In 1948, he was teaching at the Haskell Institute in Lawrence, Kansas and was commissioned to create a memorial to American Indian soldiers killed in World War II. In the 1940s, he received two Guggenheim fellowships.

Throughout this career Houser remained a working artist, primarily as an art teacher. In 1954, he received the Palmes d’Academique by the French government for his efforts as both artist and educator.

In 1962, Houser returned to Santa Fe to teach at the newly founded Institute of American Indian Art, where he worked until his retirement in 1975. Upon his retirement, Houser began work as a full—time artist. The next two decades were his most productive. At the age of 61, Houser’s grandest achievements still lay ahead of him. In 1992, Houser became the first Native American to be awarded the National Medal of Arts, which he received from President George H.W. Bush at the White House. Houser pursued his art with a characteristic enthusiasm, determination and grace that continued until his death at the age of 80 in 1994.

Houser’s Legacy Live On
Unconquered also explores the Haozous family legacy with the presentation of works by Houser’s sons, Phillip and Bob Haozous — artists who have long held their own standing on the world stage. While their father’s influence remains apparent, the sculptural renderings of Houser’s sons offer exhilarating and original interpretations of the human experience. Sometimes provocative and often sublime, the family’s artistic legacy remains clearly at the forefront of contemporary art.

The exhibition offers three distinctive viewpoints — visions of both the past and present — that are informed not only by the family’s Chiricahua heritage, but also by their own unique artistic impulses, desires, and intents. The exhibition includes some of the artists’ most significant works and provides a rare opportunity to explore one of America’s premier families of artists.

A Video Tribute
In connection with the exhibition, Gilcrease Museum is presenting the film “Unconquered: Allan Houser and the Legacy of One Apache Family, ” at 1:30 p.m. and 2:30 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 13 in the museum’s auditorium. The documentary, written and directed by Oklahoman Bryan Beasley, is narrated by Val Kilmer.

Unconquered: Allan Houser and the Legacy of One Apache Family is organized by the Oklahoma History Center with support from the Inasmuch Foundation. The exhibition is part of Oklahoma Landscapes: A Plains State of Mind, a collaboration between the Tulsa Performing Arts Center Trust, Gilcrease Museum and the Oklahoma Center for Poets and Writers. Made possible by the National Endowment for the Arts as part of American Masterpieces: Three Centuries of Artistic Genius.

America’s Western Storyteller
February 6 – May 2, 2010

The Masterworks of Charles M. Russell: A Retrospective of Paintings & Sculpture opens Feb. 6 and runs through May 2, 2010 at Gilcrease Museum. The exhibition is the first major retrospective of the artist’s work and will showcase more than 100 of the artist’s finest paintings and bronze sculptures, as well as a number of the artist’s personal effects rarely seen by the general public.

This exhibition at Gilcrease is the largest display of his art, artifacts and archives ever assembled. For the first time, Russell’s signature masterpieces have been brought together in a single offering, organized from the holdings of some of the world’s greatest collections of American Western art. The exhibition includes works from the Amon Carter Museum, the Montana Historical Society, Denver Art Museum, the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, and Buffalo Bill Historical Center.

The exhibition also will showcase the first public viewing of materials from the Russell Research Collection, including paints, palettes, photographs, personal letters, spurs, hats and the famous artist’s ivory-handled Colt six gun. These items have been added to the exhibition from The University of Tulsa’s recently acquired Russell Research Collection.

Russell (1864–1926) remains one of the most significant American artists of the early 20th century. During his lifetime, he completed more than 4,000 paintings and sculptures, many of which have become fundamental cultural icons. His depictions of cowboys, American Indians, historical figures and Western fauna are among the most well-known portrayals of the late 19th and early 20th century Western experience. His work has long been considered unique in its approach to complex subjects and is widely recognized for its authenticity and attention to detail. Above all, Russell excelled at engaging the viewer with vibrant, exciting and captivating scenes of Western life.

An exhibition catalogue, The Masterworks of Charles M. Russell: A Retrospective of Paintings and Sculpture, will be available for purchase in the Gilcrease Museum Store. The elaborately illustrated book was published by the University of Oklahoma Press, edited by Joan Carpenter Troccoli, and includes a foreword by Denver Art Museum Director Lewis Sharp and Gilcrease Museum Executive Director Duane H. King. The 270-page catalog also includes a series of critical essays by leading Russell scholars including Peter Hassrick, James P. Ronda and Anne Morand.

The Masterworks of Charles M. Russell is organized collaboratively by the Denver Art Museum and Gilcrease Museum. Exhibition sponsors are The C.W. Titus Foundation and the Sherman E. Smith Family Foundation.

Significant support for the exhibition is provided by the Helen K. and Arthur E. Johnson Foundation. Additional support is provided by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas A. Petrie, and Fine Arts Foundation.

The West of Olaf Seltzer
To Run with Charles M. Russell Retrospective
February 6 – August 29, 2010

Opening concurrently with the The Masterworks of Charles M. Russell  is The West of Olaf Seltzer. Befriended and mentored by Charles Russell, Olaf Seltzer created a large body of work that resulted in a valuable record of life in the old West.
 
In the final decade of the 19th century, a young Danish immigrant arrived in the booming town of Great Falls, Montana.  Olaf C. Seltzer (1877-1957) worked as a ranch hand for a year or so as a teenager. For more than 25 years Seltzer was a machinist for the Great Northern Railroad. His interests in drawing, natural history and science would merge in time, coming together in a complex artist/historian who was a machinist by trade and necessity, but an artist at heart. Seltzer’s dream of being an artist became more of a possibility when, at age 19, he met Charles M. Russell. Until well into his 40s, Seltzer was both machinist and artist.  But in 1921, at age 44, he finally became a full time artist and painted until his death in 1957.
 
The exhibition, The West of Olaf Seltzer explores Seltzer’s life and work and includes more than 180 oils, watercolors, and illustrated letters from the Gilcrease collection.  
 
Several series of works produced by Seltzer for his patron Dr. Philip Cole are represented: Western Characters, a group of watercolors that characterize the diverse ethnicity and occupations of the people who settled the West; Montana in Miniature, a collection of tiny oils representing the history of Montana; and the Early Western Travelogue, a group of oils illustrating the early modes of transportation in the West.  
 
Seltzer approached his work with an eye for detail. Though he did not live through much of the history he painted, his methodical research and attention to the meticulous fine points of clothing and accoutrements resulted in a valuable historical record of life in the old West.  His paintings reveal a linear style, the strong draftsmanship that Russell himself admired, and the authenticity of a consummate historian. The documentary paintings of Seltzer remain a significant contribution to Western art.
 
The West of Olaf Seltzer is sponsored by the Adelson Family. The exhibition runs through Aug. 29, 2010.

Rendezvous
Artists’ Retrospective Exhibition and Art Sale
April 16 – July 11, 2010

Gilcrease Museum welcomes two renowned, award-winning artists to its distinguished community of Rendezvous talent.

Known for her Western genre portraiture, self-taught artist Carrie Ballantyne brings to life the many faces of a working ranch. Be it ranch hand, cook, cowboy, mother or child, to name but a few, each portrait speaks to the reality not the romanticism of the American West. Married to a working cowboy, she is surrounded by the subject she loves to portray.

Ballantyne participates in many shows including Masters of the American West, Autry National Center, Los Angeles, California, and the Buffalo Bill Historical Center’s Art Show and Sale, Cody, Wyoming, where her art was chosen as the 2004 Purchase Award for the museum’s permanent collection. In 2008, she was chosen for the Prix de West Express Ranches Great American Cowboy Award.

Art as a profession is John Coleman’s second career. At the age of 42, he walked away from an established business to pick up where he left off as a teen. He began attending workshops at the Scottsdale Artist School eventually choosing sculpture as his medium. An avid historian, Coleman presents his astute knowledge of Native American history in each of his works, inviting the viewer to share in the experience.

In 2009, Coleman won the Gold Medal Award and Kieckhefer Award & Best of Show for The Game of Arrows at the Cowboy Artists of America Annual Exhibit, Phoenix Art Museum. The same year, Prix de West Exhibit & Sale, National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, Oklahoma City, awarded him the James Earl Fraser Sculpture Award and the Nona Jean Hulsey Buyers Choice Award for 1876, Gall – Sitting Bull – Crazy Horse.

Works not sold at the opening night Art Sale will be available for purchase throughout the exhibition by calling the Museum Store (918) 596-2725.

Master Class with Carrie Ballantyne
Tuesday-Thursday, April 13-15, 2010, Gilcrease House
9 a.m. – 2 p.m.
$125/members; $150/non-members

Rendezvous with artist Carrie Ballantyne as she leads a class in the “artist-to-artist” format, working with professional and amateur artists in developing and analyzing their particular painting style. Time will be spent on individual passion and purpose, fundamental artistic principles, and the process of creating art beginning to end — choosing subjects; photographing them; planning composition, mood, values, and color; and finally framing and selling. Everyone will work together sharing knowledge and experience. Ballantyne will share her process of making art and offer “students” constructive criticism on their work.

Participants are expected to provide their own materials based on a recommended supply list and medium of choice.
To register for this class, e-mail
deborah-burke@utulsa.edu, or
call (918) 596-2768.

Artists’ Talks
Friday, April 16, 2010

10:30 a.m.
Rendezvous exhibition galleries
Surrounded by his works, sculptor John Coleman will meet the audience in the Rendezvous exhibition galleries. A brief tour explaining the stories associated with individual pieces will offer insight into his creative style and motivation.

1:30 p.m.
Tom Gilcrease Jr., Auditorium
Self-taught portrait artist, Carrie Ballantyne began drawing as a child. In her early career, she used graphite, moving to colored pencil, conte crayon and now painting in oil. Ballantyne will discuss the particular approach she takes to designing art works and include images of a piece in progress.

Meet the Artists Brunch
Saturday, April 17, 2010
11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.

Enjoy meeting featured artists, Carrie Ballantyne and John Coleman while dining on delicious fare in The Restaurant at Gilcrease. Cost is $19.95. To make a reservation, call (918) 596-2720.

Student Art Exhibits

Gilcrease Museum exhibits student art year-around in the Student Art Gallery. Schools and organizations are invited to submit their proposals.
Learn more.