Woody crumbo biography

He was a citizen of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. Crumbo was also an independent prospector in New Mexico in the late s, who found one of the largest beryllium veins in the nation, valued at millions of dollars. His paintings are held by several major museums, including the Smithsonian Institution and the Metropolitan Museum of Art , with a large collection at the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma and a small collection at the Montana museum of art and culture.

After going blind, his father moved back to Indiana to live with his sister. Later he soloed on this instrument in performance with the Wichita Symphony. At the age of 19, Crumbo earned a scholarship to the American Indian Institute in Wichita, Kansas , where he graduated as valedictorian. In Crumbo enrolled at the University of Oklahoma , where he studied for two years with Oscar Jacobson.

Woody crumbo original

While studying art, Crumbo supported himself as a Native American dancer. He toured Indian reservations across the United States in the early s disseminating and studying tribal dances. His art career was affirmed when Susie Peters , his mentor from his days at the Chilocco Indian School sold a number of his paintings to the San Francisco Museum of Art.

In , the United States Treasury Department commissioned him to paint murals on the walls of its building in Washington, D. Oklahoma , which were both destroyed when the battleship was attacked and sunk at Pearl Harbor. From to , Crumbo lived in Taos, New Mexico.

What kind of art did woody crumbo make

In he moved near Checotah, Oklahoma , where he continued to create and to promote Native American art. 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. With his first interest as art, Crumbo served as assistant director of the El Paso Museum of Art in Texas from to and briefly as director in He left to work independently at art and explore humanitarian efforts.