Bacone school
also: Bacone style
The Bacone school (or Bacone style) is a Native American intertribal flatstyle movement in painting, drawing, and printmaking that grew up around Bacone College in Muskogee, Oklahoma, in the mid-20th century. It bridged older tribally specific pictorial traditions and a new intertribal modernist easel painting: artists trained in Western materials at Bacone, Chilocco, and Haskell depicted ceremony, dance, and daily life with ethnographic care. The style is distinguished from the related Kiowa and Studio flatstyles by brighter color, more movement, and a suggestion of perspective, and its leading teachers - Acee Blue Eagle, who directed the art department from 1935, and Woody Crumbo, who succeeded him - gave its figures an Art Deco crispness. Philbrook's Indian Annual (1947-1957) promoted the style, which remains a touchstone of Oklahoma Native painting.
Defining characteristics
- Brilliantly colored figures set against subdued grounds of greens, blues, and browns
- Contours of one hue ringed by lighter outlines, giving the subject a spiritual glow
- Brighter color and more movement and action than related Kiowa flatstyle painting
- Suggested depth and visual perspective unusual in flatstyle work
- Streamlined, bold outlines owing something to Art Deco
- Implied narrative that lends each scene a sense of drama
Key figures
- Acee Blue Eagle (1907-1959) — Muscogee (Creek) painter who directed Bacone's art program from 1935 and helped shape the style
- Woody Crumbo (1912-1989) — Citizen Potawatomi painter and silversmith who succeeded Blue Eagle as director in 1938
- Ruthe Blalock Jones (b. 1939) — Shawnee/Delaware/Peoria painter and historian of the Bacone school
Example works
- U.S. Post Office mural, Seminole, Oklahoma — Acee Blue Eagle (1939)
- U.S. Post Office mural, Coalgate, Oklahoma — Acee Blue Eagle (1942)
Sources
- Bacone school - Wikipedia encyclopedia