Stealing Horses
Artist
Woodrow Wilson Crumbo
Year1940
Classification
painting
Medium
oil on plaster
Dimensions5 ft. x 11 ft. 9 in. (152.4 x 358.1 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
In a large mural titled Stealing Horses, Potawatomi artist Woody
Crumbo conveys a keen sense of movement through the horses’ flowing manes and
the fluttering garments of the Potawatomi man, who attempts to capture one of
the horses with the use of a blanket. Crumbo paints with flat fields of colors
using deeply saturated tones of brown, tan, and umber. Any sense of depth or
space is suggested through overlapping horses and receding tufts of grass and
sinuous reeds. A decorative register below the scene continues along the chair
rail to the left of the doorway, which leads to the next mural, titled Peyote Bird and Symbols.
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.
