Gilcrease Magazine – Summer 2019

GILCREASE MAGAZINE S U M M E R 2 019

BOB DYLAN: FACE VALUE AND BEYOND Learn more about the exhibition on page four.

IN THIS ISSUE

F E AT U R E A R T I C L E

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TA K I N G B O B D Y L A N AT FA C E VA L U E Explore the many facets of Bob Dylan’s artistry through his renowned Face Value portrait series and ephemera exclusive to The Bob Dylan Archive®.

Like us on Facebook; follow us on Twitter and Instagram @GilcreaseMuseum.

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INSIDE LOOK: THE BOB DYLAN ARCHIVE Discover how researchers are preserving the legacy of the folk legend.

THE AMERICAN IDENTITY Learn how Gilcrease's latest exhibitions are a direct reflection of today's changing America.

VOLUME 27, NUMBER 3 SUMMER 2019

GILCREASE MAGAZINE

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E X H I B I T I O N S P O T L I G H T: RECALL/RESPOND In partnership with the Tulsa Artist Fellowship, a contemporary exhibition at Gilcrease.

ART FOR THE G E N E R AT I O N S Learn about a lasting family legacy at Gilcrease Museum.

BEHIND THE SCENES Meet the man behind the Gilcrease grounds and learn gardening tips and tricks.

Gilcrease Museum’s 2019 exhibition season is sponsored by William S. Smith.

Generous support is also provided by C.W. Titus Foundation, Robin F. Ballenger, Arts Alliance Tulsa and the Gilcrease Council.

Gilcrease Museum Magazine / Summer 2019

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DIRECTOR’S REPORT C U LT U R A L SIGNIFICANCE AND DIVERSITY

We continue to be amazed at all of the wonderful things happening in Tulsa’s arts scene and take pride in becoming more integrally woven into our city’s cultural fabric. This is due largely to presenting exhibitions and programming that resonate with both the city and national conversations, and striking a balance between relevance and fun.

If you are hosting visitors in Tulsa this summer, you’ll want to make Gilcrease a destination. There’s nothing more gratifying than hearing comments from out-of-town guests as they make their way through the galleries. Their surprise to find Bierstadt, Moran and Audubon in our collection is as evident as their wonderment that this collection is in Tulsa.

In May, the museum teamed up with the John Hope Franklin Center for Reconciliation for Gilcrease After Hours to present an evening dedicated to civic unity, celebrating the resilience of Greenwood and remembrance. Participants enjoyed music, listened to poetry readings and contributed to a community art project (photos featured above). Visitors also had the opportunity to learn about the history of Greenwood as well as the 1921 Race Massacre through a pop-up exhibition from the Tulsa Historical Society and museum.

While we are pleased that so many of our guests come from all over the world, we are equally committed to making sure that Gilcrease is as well-known and valued by our city and region. This begins with offering entertaining activities for families with small children such as Learn and Play, enriching programs for creative spirits including compelling lectures, and relaxing happy hour events such as Gilcrease After Hours.

There truly is something for everyone.

We are lucky enough to offer some once-in-a-lifetime exhibitions at the museum this summer. The incredibly moving Pulitzer Prize Photographs will be here through July 14.

This exhibit captures the American experience at its finest and worst hours while demonstrating the extraordinary role art can play in bringing about social change. The new Bob Dylan: Face Value and Beyond is attracting visitors from across the country and around the world. These rare glimpses into newsworthy events and popular culture are in addition to several ongoing exhibitions and a new offering from the Tulsa Artist Fellows, Recall/Respond, which opens June 21.

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With so much to take in at Gilcrease, I hope you’ll make Gilcrease a part of your stay-cation this summer. And when you are looking to show your summer guests the best Tulsa has to offer, make sure Gilcrease is on your list.

Susan Neal Executive Director of Gilcrease Museum and Helmerich Center for American Research Vice President for Public Affairs, The University of Tulsa

TAKING BOB DYLAN AT FACE VALUE

BY MASON WHITEHORN POWELL

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ace Value is a collection of 12 portraits in pastel by Bob Dylan that were first unveiled at the London National Portrait Gallery in 2013. These works are featured in their regional debut at the Gilcrease exhibition Bob Dylan: Face Value and Beyond, which runs through Sept. 15, 2019. Dylan’s portraiture will be accompanied by a vast selection of artworks drawn from his archives – a collection that solidifies and provides context to his decadeslong, if largely unknown, career as a visual artist.

as a musician. Together, these establish an aesthetic tableau representative of his internal visions of America and the contemporary world.

Currently preserved on the Gilcrease campus for scholarly use, The Bob Dylan Archive® arrived in Tulsa by way of the George Kaiser Family Foundation in 2016. The opening of the archive has been revelatory for researchers, elucidating the scope of Dylan’s longstanding engagement with the visual arts across decades of sketchbooks and manuscript marginalia.

Nearly half a century since “Self Portrait,” people have neither forgotten nor rejected Dylan. He’ll turn 78 about two weeks after Face Value and Beyond opens, and he shows no sign of retiring as the Never Ending Tour rolls on and new records are released every few years.

Later in his career, Dylan expanded his graphic repertoire. Following an early foray into painting during the 1960s and his endless sketches composed while on tour, Dylan began to create what could be considered his serious work: paintings, drawings and objects from the 1980s onward. Both the art recurring throughout his archive and the later, more focused and mature work, offer insights into Dylan beyond his career

Dylan’s 1974 album “Self Portrait” features his visage on the cover, done in thick, blocky acrylics. According to him, this painting took “about five minutes” and was an embodiment of songs that represented his ever-increasing contempt of fame. “I wish these people would just forget about me. I wanna do something they can’t possibly like,” he said.

His public career as a visual artist began in 2007 with “The Drawn Blank Series.” Represented by Halcyon Gallery in the United Kingdom, Dylan based these paintings on sketches he made while on the road during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Drawn Blank has been exhibited in five countries.

With approximately 10 unique exhibitions over the subsequent decade, his art has found global appeal and critical acclaim.

Halcyon’s website and their Dylan catalogs explain his artistic direction in further detail. From the wrought iron sculptures of Mood Swings to the screenprinted appropriations of magazine covers in Revisionist Art, his dedication to the art world can be taken as seriously as his monumental participation in the recording industry.

Still, all art is subjective. Dylan’s sensibility as a musician is virtuosic – as

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a songwriter, he’s arguably unparalleled – but on canvas and paper, the veil between him and his influences grows thinner. Fans of Woody Guthrie’s drawings will once again find Dylan to be his kindred spirit with the Face Value portraits. Each face has been stripped down to its essence, as the title suggests, with an aesthetic that stems from the surface-level emotions etched upon each. The expressiveness of these loose renderings arises not only from what’s there – but what isn’t, similar to the eternal question of Dylan’s enigmatic identity.

Just as references to fine art abound in his music, Dylan has continued to plow the modernist line; his paintings are reminiscent of Matisse, and his illustrations suggest Picasso’s line drawings.

Andy Warhol’s “Screen Test” of Bob Dylan from 1965 will also be screening, on loan from The Andy Warhol Museum. This short film provides a glimpse into both artists’ self-made images: Warhol’s elite documentarian vision of celebrity; and contrarily, his attempt to capture Dylan in this role. Between Dylan’s solemn portraits and Warhol’s living depiction, this exhibition presents a tension between artist and subject.

Rarely seen and never publicly exhibited before, a careful selection of drawings, manuscripts and ephemera from The Bob Dylan Archive® will also be on display with a focus on Dylan’s artwork for “Writings and Drawings” (1973), his first authorized collection of lyrics. It was a last-minute decision by Dylan to publish his art with these texts. Eighteen were selected that thematically alluded to the lyrics and disjecta membra they accompany. Composed during the early ’70s, more than 100 additional sketches from this series, titled “Morris Zollar Wants to Know,” are in the archive. Examples from the published drawings and never-before-seen outtakes will be displayed, alongside artist proofs and lithographs of more recent work signed by Dylan. This means that one will be able to follow Dylan the artist from past to present, above and below the surface.

A close partnership between The Bob Dylan Center and Gilcrease Museum is important to preserve the archive for future generations and to host public events that showcase these treasures of American iconography.

Face Value and Beyond is one such collaboration along the road to building The Bob Dylan Center in the Tulsa Arts District by 2021. It’s only right that Dylan will be shown among the premier collection of artworks from the American West and Native American traditions.  The Face Value series is graciously on loan from the Jenny Norton and Bob Ramsey Collection.

To learn more, visit gilcrease.org/dylan.

INSIDE LOOK:

THE BOB DYLAN ARCHIVE Bob Dylan: Face Value and Beyond is not the only thing drawing visitors from far and wide to Gilcrease Museum.

The Bob Dylan Archive®, housed in The University of Tulsa’s Helmerich Center for American Research on the Gilcrease campus, attracts researchers from around the world seeking to dive deeper into the legacy of the folk music legend.

overseen by Mark Davidson, archives director for The Bob Dylan Archive®, who helps researchers find exactly what they need.

“The Starchive system that we have here is connected to the Dylan office in New York,” Davidson explained.

“We can share the information on our computers, but it is not available anywhere else. For scholars who want to research all of the unheard and unseen Scholars who meet the archive’s Dylan material, they either have to qualifications are granted access to figure out a way to break into the office roughly 60,000 physical items and around 100,000 digital items housed in in New York or come to Tulsa and do “Starchive,” which is accessible by only their research here.” a few computers – some in the archive With Davidson’s help navigating the and some in New York. All of these archive, researchers like Clinton Heylin materials are are able to glean new insight into Dylan’s personal history and creative process.

“There’s so much new material available in the archive,” Heylin said.

Bruce Langhorne, an influential figure in the 1960s folk music scene, inspired the title character of Bob Dylan's song "Mr. Tambourine Man." The Archive acquired Langhorne's tambourine in 2017.

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“There’s material that changes the way you think about Dylan. It’s only when you come here that you know what it is you’re dealing with.”

Before the archive came to the Helmerich Center, would-be experts did not have access to objects like song drafts that can reframe Dylan’s legacy.

“The archive turns everything on its head,” said Michael Chaiken, curator of The Bob Dylan Archive®. “As much material is out there, as much research has been done, these researchers have never been able to go to primary sources like this. There’s so much more detail now, these materials add a whole new level. They fill in a lot of gaps and explain a lot.”

Access to objects such as song drafts have shifted the narrative of the artist’s life by offering researchers a glance into his creative process and timeline.

“It can be the most innocuous of things,” Heylin said. “We never necessarily knew the order that songs were written in – we could only guess. But this particular

Costume from 2003 film "Masked and Anonymous" worn by Bob Dylan.

draft of “You’re a Big Girl Now,” a key song from Dylan’s seminal album, was written prior to the break-up with his wife, Sarah. So, the song that we always thought was about the breakup turns out to be a plea for Sarah to forgive him before they broke up. It changes the whole sense of what that song or what that album was about.”

The Bob Dylan Archive® will become more available to the public with the planned 2021 opening of The Bob Dylan Center in the Tulsa Arts District. There, the public can view curated materials from the archive, similar to what is being displayed in Bob Dylan: Face Value and Beyond.

“The first process was getting the archive here and getting it to a stable location, which is the Helmerich Center for American Research at Gilcrease,” Chaiken said. “Now that everything is here, we can work toward the creation of The Bob Dylan Center, which is essentially the public face while the archive is the beating heart.”

MARK DAVIDSON, ARCHIVES DIRECTOR OF THE BOB DYLAN ARCHIVE® To learn more, visit gilcrease.org/news/dylanarchive.

Gilcrease Museum Magazine / Summer 2019

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GILCREASE: A MIRROR OF

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he concept of American identity often conjures images of thickskinned explorers and triumphant western expansion. Indeed, Gilcrease Museum is known for world-class American western art celebrating names like Thomas Moran and Frederic Remington. But this collection also contains a more nuanced story, wherein the ideology of manifest destiny throughout the American continents is stained by the reality of tragedy and dispossession.

Honoring the vision of Thomas Gilcrease, the museum conveys the true and messy narrative of cowboys, transcontinental settlers and Indigenous cultures while cultivating an in-depth conversation and reevaluation of American history. Currently, Gilcrease is going a step further with a new interpretive master plan. The goal is to inspire visitors to acknowledge the continually changing definition of American identity and invite them to engage in their own communities through artistic, social and cultural discourse and action.

Gilcrease’s Executive Director Susan Neal hopes visitors will be surprised by the changes. “They will see works that maybe to them look out of place.

Putting contemporary native pottery in front of Thomas Moran’s ‘Shoshone Falls on the Snake River’ creates a conversation within the gallery predicated on the question, ‘What is a master work?’”

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AMERICANS ALL! Through the lens of an immigrant, the exhibition Americans All! combines art from the Gilcrease collection and contemporary works from immigrants in the Tulsa community. The title Americans All! revives a phrase used in World War I to entice immigrants to join the service.

Despite being foreign-born, the United States considered them to be part of the red, white and blue.

For this show, Curator of History Mark Dolph orchestrated a conversation among the featured artworks. Dolph explained, “We have the work ‘Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way’

by German-born Emanuel Leutze, that considers one perspective of 19th century expansion positioned next to ‘A Disputed Passage’ by Jules Tavernier, who immigrated to America from France. Where Leutze’s work proclaims that manifest destiny was indeed the nation’s ‘obvious future,’ Tavernier paints a much more ambiguous picture, one where nature and the agency of Native people have a role to play.”

In the same exhibition, a video performance by a young Mexican Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipient and art student Carmen Castorena depicts her desire to appear American. “The Perfect Tommy Girl” shows Castorena at her bathroom mirror trying to become more American with makeup, dying her black hair blonde, changing the color of her eyes to blue and bleaching her skin to appear whiter. Dolph believes her message is transcendent: “I think so many of our guests relate to Carmen because she speaks to the very human longing to be accepted.”

By pairing the museum’s historical collection of works with those of contemporary artists from Cuba, Japan, Lebanon and Mexico, Americans All! provides refreshing insight into being American. Senior Curator and Curator of Art Laura Fry pointed out, “Many artists who we consider to be quintessentially American were born in other countries.

Immigrants have been a part of shaping who we are as Americans.”

Brian Cornell, Hayward, California, 1989

THE AMERICAN IDENTITY BLAKE LITTLE: PHOTOGRAPHS F R O M T H E G AY R O D E O Despite his popular culture reputation, John Wayne is not a traditional cowboy.

“Cowboys were historically multiracial from all different walks of life and commonly Native American,” Fry said. In a recent Gilcrease exhibition, photographer Blake Little provided a new interpretation of cowboys and masculinity by inviting viewers to the gay rodeo.

In the 1980s, the gay rodeo was founded for cowboys who grew up in rural areas and were interested in rodeo sports, but who because of their sexual orientation, were not welcomed at traditional rodeos.

Shot at the height of the AIDS epidemic when the gay community was ravaged by disease and death, Little’s photos are full of hope, life and fellowship. “The gay rodeo was a place where these cowboys could celebrate being westerners, bull riders and the fact that they were gay,” Fry said. “They could celebrate their full identity versus having to ignore or suppress part of their identity.”

Along with Little’s photos, Gilcrease collaborated with Tulsa’s Oklahomans for Equality to host: OutWest with OKEQ. It was a celebration of the west’s long but often forgotten LBGTQ+ history, featuring a night of country-western music and dancing.

A L B E R T B I E R S TA D T: W I T N E S S TO A CHANGING WEST Albert Bierstadt is known as one of America’s premier western landscape artists, and his focus on preserving instead of exploiting the environment and Native peoples is groundbreaking.

Through his paint brush, he unearths the untold story of the early wildlife conservation movement. “He shifted the way we see the environment around us,” Fry said. Bierstadt serves as a reminder that the value of land is not only summed up by farming and ranching purposes but also its majestic beauty.

GILCREASE IN THE 21ST CENTURY Gilcrease invites the Tulsa community to experience new and culturally-varied exhibitions like Bob Dylan: Face Value and Beyond or Pulitzer Prize Photographs where through the eyes of the photographer, visitors reshape their understanding of history. Often recalling memories of where they were during a specific historic moment, the photos encourage viewers to bring their own stories to the conversation.

America continues to be more diverse in cultures, opinions and stories. “If we are reflective of the American experience, we need to be responsive as it changes,” Senior Director of Development Frank Mulhern said. “The common language is the art that they create.”

T. C. Cannon (1946–1978, Caddo/Kiowa), His Hair Flows Like a River, 1973–1977.

Gilcrease Museum Magazine / Summer 2019

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E X H I B I T I O N F E AT U R E

RECALL/RESPOND

A G I L C R E A S E M U S E U M / T U L S A A R T I S T F E L L O W S H I P C O L L A B O R A T I O N by Laura Fry

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hen Thomas Gilcrease built his art collection through the 1940s and 1950s, he frequently worked with contemporary artists of his day.

Woody Crumbo, a Potawatomi artist from Oklahoma, advised Gilcrease and helped guide his acquisitions of Native American art. Mr. Gilcrease established an artist in residence program in the 40s and 50s to support regional artists and add contemporary art to the Gilcrease Museum collection. However, through the late 20th century and early 2000s, Gilcrease Museum had primarily focused on historical material for exhibitions and scholarship.

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But a new Gilcrease is on the horizon.

Recently, Gilcrease Museum has started to introduce contemporary art to the traveling exhibition schedule and to permanent collection galleries, expanding the overall scope of exhibition offerings. In 2016, Gilcrease presented the exhibition Rick Bartow: Things You Know But Cannot Explain, a retrospective of surreal sculpture and expressionist paintings, drawings and printmaking by Rick Bartow, a contemporary Wiyot artist from the Pacific Northwest. Bartow’s work was followed by exhibitions of contemporary paintings by Kay WalkingStick and T.C. Cannon. Going forward, the museum’s

next presentation of contemporary art is an exhibition co-created by Gilcrease and Tulsa Artist Fellowship (TAF).

Recall/Respond is a two-part juried exhibition of work by artists who are part of the TAF. Established in 2015 by the George Kaiser Family Foundation, TAF cultivates Tulsa’s arts scene by recruiting and retaining artists and arts workers to our community where they have the creative freedom to pursue their crafts while contributing to a thriving cultural community. Currently, 60 arts practitioners of diverse disciplines are living and working in Tulsa’s Arts District. For this exhibition, Gilcrease invited current and former

fellows to seek inspiration from the Gilcrease collections, architecture and grounds — and from Oklahoma’s distinct history. Fellows proposed artworks and performances responding to Gilcrease and to Oklahoma, and a jury selected the final works to include for two exhibition rotations. The final exhibitions are co-curated by Laura Fry, Gilcrease senior curator, and Carolyn Sickles, executive director of the Tulsa Artist Fellowship.

“This exhibition with TAF at Gilcrease represents the perfect timing: as Gilcrease prepares to modernize its facilities to better embrace its mission, the Tulsa community and its collections, the TAF artists offer us new ways of exploring our past and present,” noted Kirsten Olds, one of the exhibition jurors.

The first iteration of the two-part exhibition runs from June 21 – Oct. 13, 2019, and unites a wide variety of media, styles, and artistic perspectives. The selected works include photography, textile, drawing, painting, video, sculpture, sound installation and a functioning fountain.

In addition to the exhibition in Smith Gallery and Helmerich Hall, two works will be installed on the Gilcrease Grounds. The second iteration of the exhibition runs from Nov. 15, 2019 – March 15, 2020 and will feature a new group of jury-selected artworks from the Tulsa Artist Fellowship.

“It is fundamental to our institutional mission that our fellows find a diverse range of presentation platforms within Oklahoma. Partnering with Gilcrease Museum has provided access to one of the most unique regional collections and landscapes in Tulsa. These distinct exhibitions will demonstrate how contemporary art prompts audiences to see through a critical lens,” said Carolyn Sickles, executive director of the Tulsa Artist Fellowship.

Through this exhibition, we hope to connect stories of the past to artists working in the present, showing that the historic artworks and archives at Gilcrease Museum inform ongoing issues and concerns of the present. In addition, we hope to show how contemporary artists provide distinct, critical perspectives which help define and shape our world today. 

Yatika Fields, Half Moon Night, Medicine and Remembrance, 2019, oil on canvas

Carolyn Sickles Executive Director, Tulsa Artist Fellowship Laura Fry Senior Curator & Curator of Art, Gilcrease Museum Special thanks to the jury who selected the artworks for Recall/Respond: A Tulsa Artist Fellowship and Gilcrease Collaboration: Lindsey Claire Smith Interim Director, Center for Poets and Writers at OSU-Tulsa, and Associate Professor, English and American Indian Studies, Oklahoma State University Kirsten Olds Associate Professor of Art History, The University of Tulsa Bobby Martin Artist and Professor of Visual Arts, John Brown University Participating Artists, Part 1:

Participating Artists, Part 2:

• Molly Murphy Adams • Steve Bellin-Oka • Shane Darwent • Rena Detrixhe • Daniel Farnum • Yatika Fields • Edgar Frias • Elisa Harkins • Jessica Harvey • Rachel Hayes • Clemonce Heard • Karl Jones • Joel Daniel Phillips

• Sarah Ahmad • Crystal Campbell • Emily Chase • Hoesy Corona • Anita Fields • Heyd Fontenot • Kalup Linzy • Meghan Martin • Arigon Starr • Tali Weinberg

Gilcrease Museum Magazine / Summer 2019

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MEMBER PROFILE

A R T F O R T H E G E N E R AT I O N S

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o Mary Elliott, involvement in Gilcrease Museum is a part of her family legacy. Her parents, Dan and Neva Brannin, established an endowment fund benefitting the museum after their many years supporting Gilcrease and becoming inspired to collect art. Mary and her siblings, Clark, Nancy and Graham serve as trustees of their parents foundation, which supports the museum 66 years after they first became acquainted with it.

Dan and Neva moved to Tulsa in 1953, which happened to be the same year the City of Tulsa was working on a plan to secure Mr. Gilcrease’s debts in order to keep the collection in tact in Tulsa. (The vote to do so successfully passed the following year.) In return, the citizens of Tulsa would ultimately inherit the Gilcrease collection, museum and grounds for the benefit of the city.

“They wanted to be responsible voting citizens,” Mary explained. “So, they decided to go out to Gilcrease to see what it was going to offer.”

When Dan and Neva arrived at the museum, none other than Mr. Gilcrease himself welcomed them in to tour the collection. After their visit, Dan and Neva became inspired by his story, thus sparking their interest in learning about and collecting art; a passion they shared for the rest of their lives.

Neva was always a student of art and wanted to learn. Her fascination was the driving force behind starting their collection. She began to volunteer at Gilcrease as a Gillie and went on to become the organization’s president in 1984. Mary eventually followed her mother’s lead and became a Gillie in 1989. The two shared many Gilcrease moments together. Mary still volunteers at the museum each week, currently 12

assisting with a variety of needs in the anthropology department.

“Learning about the collection was something mom and I had in common,” Mary noted. “We gave tours together at night for special events. We wanted to share our passion with people.”

Dan, a beloved oral surgeon, was fascinated with many of the pieces they collected, particularly “The Norther” by Frederic Remington, identifying with the emotions conveyed by the sculpture from his experiences with ranching both as a child and at his family’s ranch. “‘The Norther’ was the sculpture that he would always quote saying, ‘I’ve been that cold.’” Mary remembered. “When you look at ‘The Norther,’ remember that in those times, all they had was cotton, silk, wool, maybe some fleece or leather. He was brought up ranching, and when it’s freezing cold, you have to go break open the pond. Daddy would talk about that with less than fond memories. It’s hard work.”

The family ranch, which was home to many animals, became home to her parents’ collection, too. It was a powerful experience for Mary to see that same art displayed at Gilcrease Museum.

“When I think of these paintings, I picture them at my parents’ house.”

Mary explained. “At the ranch, art was all over the walls. One of the strangest, peculiar feelings, was when I saw it hung in a gallery. It was beyond overwhelming.”

Gilcrease Museum recently acquired two works from the Brannin collection, purchasing a formerly unknown study of a burro by Frederic Remington and receiving a painting by Warren E. Rollins (the first in the Gilcrease collection), as a gift from the Brannin family. Consequently, the art the

Brannins collected as a result of their affiliation with Gilcrease Museum, now finds itself interspersed within acquisitions made by Thomas Gilcrease himself.

Even for family members who don’t live in Oklahoma, the City of Tulsa and Gilcrease Museum are important to the Brannin legacy, stemming from the many years of family gatherings and summer trips.

“There are three things that my niece and her family do every time they visit Tulsa from New Mexico,” Mary said. “They go to the ranch, go to Gilcrease and go to Braums.”

Through Mary’s continued service as a Gillie and as a trustee of the Dan E. and Neva L. Brannin Foundation, she is carrying the mantle of a proud family legacy that speaks to the importance of art appreciation, lifelong learning and service.

These values are now being passed down to successive generations.

“A lot of what is special is that mom and dad both appreciated the art for just art’s sake,” Mary explained. “Mom and Dad never pushed us, but they helped us to appreciate it. One of the neatest things about our foundation is how the next generation is becoming more interactive, because mom and dad helped them learn to appreciate so much.”

FREDERIC REMINGTON REDISCOVERED Is it possible to find a “new” artwork by Frederic Remington, an artist who’s been dead for 110 years?

When museums and private collectors work together, new research opportunities can reveal artworks that previously were hidden.

The Brannin collection included a drawing of a pack burro, signed “Frederic Remington.” However, the drawing was not listed in Remington’s catalogue raisonnè, the comprehensive record of ALL his known works. The signature alone was not proof of Remington’s authorship, given that his work was frequently copied and forged.

To authenticate the drawing, Gilcrease assisted the Brannin Family by sending the drawing to be reviewed by Frederic Remington scholars at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West’s Remington Exam.

The Remington Exam determined the drawing was indeed the work of Remington, and the drawing will now be added to his online catalogue raisonnè and available for future study by scholars and Remington enthusiasts. Gilcrease is thrilled to acquire this “new” Frederic Remington drawing for the permanent collection.

Gilcrease Museum Magazine / Summer 2019

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BEHIND THE

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SCENES with Phil Applegate, groundskeeper

Beyond the extensive Gilcrease collection and exhibits, visitors can experience our beautiful landscape. We caught up with Phil Applegate to learn more about what it takes to care for our historic theme gardens.

Q: Where were you born?

A: Right here in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Q: How did you find your passion for gardening?

A: I’d been doing it for a long time at The University of Tulsa. I started out as a groundskeeper there many, many years ago. I had done it as a hobby and was able to find a job doing what I like, being outdoors. I’m not really an indoor, desk, computer-type person at all, so it worked out.

Q: Which themed garden is your favorite?

A: I like the Colonial Garden; it has the most history.

There are a lot of plants that we can actually get from Monticello, Mount Vernon, actual colonial gardens that sell their own seeds from their gardens.

Q: Has there been any member involvement in making these gardens beautiful?

A: Yes. In fact, one of the Gillies gifted us tulip bulbs.

She is head of the garden committee for the Gillies. She had some tulip bulbs left over from their own house that they donated, which is great because we didn’t have any tulips, so we were very happy to have them.

Q: What’s your favorite season?

A: I like the fall. Things start to chill out, the summer work is over, and winter starts to cool everything down.

Q: What’s your typical day on the job?

A: Pulling weeds, pulling weeds, pulling weeds. That’s what I do. I do all the planting, like all these tulips, but that’s just a seasonal thing. There is a ton of planting, but only for a couple weeks. After that, I’m completely buried in pulling weeds. Very exciting work.

Q: What gardening tips do you have for our members?

A: Pay attention to the soil. Make sure that you are purchasing the right soil when you’re ready to plant. If you just dig a hole in your yard and try to put plants in, you can get very frustrated.

Q: What is your favorite thing to do outside?

A: I love to run. I have run barefoot for a long time. To me, it seems every 20 years or so, it becomes a fad, and I’ve been doing it through a few of those fads. It seems like a few years ago it kind of picked up and I would run races with one or two other barefoot runners, but now I’m the only one. So, I guess the fad has faded, but I am a staunch believer. Other than not having to buy expensive running shoes, it will add intensity to your workout, and it is a great feeling. It’s also a great conversation starter.

Learn more about the grounds at gilcrease.org/news/gardens.

GILCREASE GARDENS Enjoy 23 acres of themed gardens only five minutes from downtown Tulsa. The Gilcrease Gardens are a perfect location for date night, photography, picnics, bird watching and so much more. Free public tours of the gardens are given Saturdays in the spring and fall (April, May, June, September and October), and the grounds are open 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily.

Gilcrease Museum Magazine / Summer 2019

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THE DECLARATION: O U R N AT I O N A L T R E A S U R E Celebrate our nation's independence with a rare glimpse of the historic document that started it all from July 2-7. Last displayed in July of 2015, this handwritten copy of the Declaration of Independence was used in 1777 by Benjamin Franklin as part of his diplomatic communication with the court of Frederick the Great of Prussia.

This copy of the Declaration is in the hand of Silas Dean, who served with Franklin in Paris.

Thomas Gilcrease acquired the museum’s copy of the Declaration of Independence after seeing it on the Freedom Train. The Freedom Train was a traveling exhibition that included patriotic objects documenting the nation’s heritage of freedom.

O N D I S P L AY

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Make plans now to see the most treasured American document in Gilcrease’s archival collection this July!

THE LAST WORD

with Ken Levit

Ask anyone about what makes Tulsa special. No doubt, they will highlight the community’s longstanding, outsized support for the arts. No doubt, they will discuss the exceptional arts institutions we enjoy. Top of the list always has been and always will be Gilcrease Museum.

In a sense, the commitment to the arts in Tulsa is embedded in the DNA of this city, going back to its physical foundations as reflected in the pristine art deco architecture in the core of the downtown area. And of course, the City of Tulsa’s acquisition of the Gilcrease collection, through a public bond issue in 1954, represents one of the most important days in Tulsa history.

It is also so exciting to me that the Tulsa arts scene has enjoyed a burst of new energy over the past decade. We have seen it in the growth of the Tulsa Arts District, the powerful imprint of the Tulsa Artist Fellowship and the countless artists, across all genres and in every corner of the community, who make Tulsa their home and their working studio.

But what might be most exciting these days is not just that Tulsa once enjoyed a glorious arts past or that we are experiencing a renaissance of sorts.

What might be of most interest is the fact that the arts legacy of Tulsa is being embraced by the artists of today such that new ways of collaborating and telling stories are always in process.

Personally, I can speak to at least two such collaborations that have great potential to add to the current zeitgeist arts renewal and community vitality.

Recall/Respond: A Tulsa Artist Fellowship and Gilcrease Collaboration is curated by Carolyn Sickles, executive director of the Tulsa Artist Fellowship, and Laura Fry, senior curator of art for Gilcrease Museum. In their first project of this kind, Carolyn and Laura have put

together an amazing exhibition that showcases the vast pool of talent Tulsa is attracting and nurturing. This exhibition arises out of a juried selection process for the Tulsa Artists Fellows who were invited to see the Gilcrease collection and then submit their work as inspired by the collection. The artists interpreted – whether through performance or sculpture or painting – the themes that came to life in the museum. This juxtaposition of the historic collection with contemporary artists, representing such a broad cross-section of life experiences, promises to be highly engaging.

Second, Bob Dylan: Face Value and Beyond is the culmination of efforts by The Bob Dylan Archive®, The Bob Dylan Center and Gilcrease Museum. This exhibition not only features Face Value, a collection of paintings by the Nobel Prize-winning folk singer, but personal effects and ephemera that have been housed in The Bob Dylan Archive® here in Tulsa since it was acquired.

Though Dylan is best known for his music, he was also a writer of prose, a filmmaker and someone who has been involved in the visual arts for decades.

We are enthusiastic about creating an opportunity to explore all the different avenues of Dylan's creativity. The exhibit includes handwritten song lyrics, a black leather jacket worn by Dylan, the artist’s electric guitar and screen tests filmed by Andy Warhol.

These relationships, juxtaposing the historic Gilcrease collection with contemporary artists like the Tulsa Artist Fellows – as well as with the iconic Bob Dylan – are helping to define Tulsa in new ways that are authentic to and arising out of Tulsa’s history.

We have much to look forward to in our community, including the renovation and expansion of Gilcrease as well as the opening of The Bob Dylan Center.

The arts defined the emergence of Tulsa, and they will set a bright course for its future, too. 

Gilcrease Museum Magazine / Summer 2019

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T R A U M A T O T R A N S F O R M AT I O N : THE POWER OF PHOTOGRAPHS AS C ATA LY S T S F O R C H A N G E Sunday, July 14 at 2 p.m. | Free with admission In conjunction with the exhibition Pulitzer Prize Photographs, join us for a panel discussion that explores how powerful images can serve as an impetus for policy change, shifts in national dialogue and personal transformation. The panel, moderated by Mark Dolph, Gilcrease curator of history, will include local photojournalists and community leaders, Dr. Elana Newman, professor of psychology and co-director of TITAN (The University of Tulsa Institute of Trauma, Adversity and Injustice) and Lynden Steele, director of photojournalism at the Reynold’s Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri and team recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for breaking

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news photography at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 2015. A reception will follow the event.

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