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Buffalo Hunt by Woodrow Wilson Crumbo
Photo CreditCarol M. Highsmith Photography
Photo CaptionPotawatomie Life (detail) - buffalo hunt
Buffalo Hunt
Photo CreditCarol M. Highsmith Photography
Photo CaptionPotawatomie Life (detail) - buffalo hunt

Buffalo Hunt

Artist
Year1940
Classification painting
Medium oil on plaster
DimensionsOther (Buffalo Hunt): 5 ft. x 11 ft. (152.4 x 335.3 cm)
Other (plant): 5 ft. x 1 ft. 9 in. (152.4 x 53.3 cm)
Credits Commissioned through the Section of Fine Arts 1934 -1943
Fine Arts Collection
U.S. General Services Administration
Location
YouTube Video(s) YouTube Video Link
  • Painted
    with richly saturated colors, Buffalo
    Hunt     by Potawatomi artist Woody Crumbo depicts an energetic chase by two
    hunters. Following a herd of bison, one rider takes aim with a bow while the
    other leaps off his horse to plunge a knife into the back of a bison. In this
    dramatic and visceral scene, Crumbo infuses the composition with movement
    through the flowing manes of the horses, the fluttering garments of the two
    Potawatomi hunters, and the exhausted, panic-stricken faces of the bison. The
    main scene is located between two doorways. On the other side of the left doorway, the artist
    includes an isolated clump of tall reeds that are typical of the plains,
    similar to other flora in the main composition.
     


    Woodrow Wilson Crumbo, better known as Woody
    Crumbo, was Director of Art at Bacone College in Muskogee, Oklahoma, when he
    traveled to Washington, D.C. to complete his mural series at the new Department
    of the Interior building in 1940. He was one of four Native American artists
    who painted 2,200 feet of murals for the eighth-floor penthouse, which served
    as the employee lounge. While Crumbo painted the south corridor, Zia Pueblo
    artist Velino Herrera covered the north corridor. In the main room, the walls were
    divided between Chiricahua Apache artist Allan Houser and Navajo painter Gerald
    Nailor. The Secretary of the Interior, Harold Ickes, insisted on commissioning
    artwork by Native American artists. Because of this mandate, the Section of
    Fine Arts invited Crumbo, Herrera, Houser, and Nailor to participate in the
    penthouse project and contacted two Kiowa artists, James Auchiah and Stephen
    Mopope, to paint murals for the cafeteria.