Flute Player
Artist
Woodrow Wilson Crumbo
Year1940
Classification
painting
Medium
oil on plaster
Dimensions60 x 48 in. (152.4 x 121.9 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 Flute Player by Potawatomi artist Woody Crumbo, a musician plays on
a cedarwood flute and wears the traditional dress of the Potawatomi. A stylized
sun rises behind his head and tall reeds surround him on either side. In
composing this mural, Crumbo likely drew upon his own experiences making and
performing on a cedarwood flute. As a renowned musician and dancer, he
performed throughout the 1930s at reservations across the United States, where
he collected and shared traditional dances and music.
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.
