Buffalo Hunt
Artist
Woodrow Wilson Crumbo
Year1940
Classification
painting
Medium
oil on plaster
Dimensions5 ft. x 11 ft. (152.4 x 335.3 cm)
Credits
Commissioned through the Section of Fine Arts 1934 -1943
Fine Arts Collection
U.S. General Services Administration
Fine Arts Collection
U.S. General Services Administration
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.
