My World – Tulsa’s Gilcrease Museum

20091130_5
(“Sacred Rain Arrow”) by Allan Houser

Saturday my Father and I visited Tulsa’s Gilcrease Museum. A museum owned by the city of Tulsa and operated jointly with the University of Tulsa. The core of the art collection it houses was acquired by Oklahoma Oilman Thomas Gilcrease who was a fan of American art, especially that of the American west. It is loaded with paintings and sculptures by Frederic Remingon, Charles Russell, Thomas Moran, John Singer Sargent, and others. The museum has a no photography policy that I of course honored but their web site has a link to a sizeable sample of their collection. Below is one of my favorites.

(“Meat’s not meat ’til it’s in the pan” by Charles M. Russell.)

An unexpected bonus was a special exhibit of the art of Allan Houser. Houser was a member Chiricahua Apache tribe and was born in Apache, Oklahoma. He was a prolific artist and art teacher who painted and sculpted. It turns out that he was a very famous artist, and I have just totally overlooked him my whole life. Below is a sculpture of Houser, done by one of his sons, on display at the museum.

Allan Howser

If you live in Oklahoma you see this something like this every day.

The archer on our license plate is based on Houser’s “Sacred Rain Arrow” sculpture on display at the entrance to the Gilcrease Museum.
Below is another work by Houser on the museum grounds. I apologize but I didn’t note the name of the piece.

20091130_7

If you find yourself with a few extra hours in Tulsa I recommend the Gilcrease Museum.

For other views of the world we share check out “That’s My World.”

10 thoughts on “My World – Tulsa’s Gilcrease Museum”

  1. Janie

    The Sacred RAin Arrow is a beautiful sculpture. I hadn’t heard of Houser, but I’m familiar with most of the other artists you mentioned. Must be a wonderful museum to visit.

  8. Tulsa Gentleman

    Thanks for the post. Sue and I have been intending to go out to Gilcrease to see this but have procrastinated. We saw a lot of Alan Houser’s work when we were in Santa Fe last month. Great stuff.

Comments are closed.