"The Ribbon Bets," "Cherokee Matriarch," "The Patriot" and "Katie 'Osage' Cheyenne" by Charles Banks Wilson. Used by permission.

Artwork 'Celebrating Native America' Exhibited at Mullins Library

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - At an early age Charles Banks Wilson realized his life's obsession as an artist would be to reflect his time and place. But Wilson never realized when growing up in Miami, Okla., that recording his time and place would include painting Native American Indians until his first year as a student at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1936. There, his fellow schoolmates plied him with questions about Oklahoma "redmen."

Inspired by their curiosity, Wilson began sketching and painting American Indians during his summers home from school. Wilson says, "I was seeing a transition from primitive man to sophisticated man, and I was in the right place and time to record it."

And record it he did, as evidenced in works depicting traditional native America such as "Medicine Singers," "Birthright," and "The Ribbon Bets." But he also recorded images that were surprising to his Chicago peers, images that depicted individuals as they truly were. Images such as "Cherokee Matriarch," "Katie 'Osage' Cheyenne," and "Osage Orator" reveal American Indians caught in the transition between native and white America.

The artwork is now on display at Mullins Library on the University of Arkansas campus.

Wilson says this transition "was not a popular theme in anyone's opinion" because "Americans wanted the Indian to remain a nostalgic keepsake, committed forever to chasing the buffalo across the boundless prairies." Wilson admits he was a bit baffled when people asked him why he was making social comments through his art. He says simply, "I was just painting what my eyes saw."

Wilson was commissioned to paint portraits of Will Rogers, Sequoyah, Robert Kerry, Jim Thorpe, Woody Guthrie and four murals of state history for the rotunda of the Oklahoma Capitol. He is a Fellow of the International Institute of Arts and Letters of Geneva, Switzerland; a member of the Oklahoma Hall of Fame, and a recipient of the Western Heritage Award from the Cowboy Hall of Fame. He was named an Oklahoma Treasure by the Governor's Arts Awards in 2001. He still paints every day.

"Celebrating Native America" will be on display in the main lobby area in Mullins Library through the end of December. For more information, call (479) 575-6702 or visit http://libinfo.uark.edu/info/artexhibit.asp .