Woodrow Wilson Crumbo and the oilman Thomas Gilcrease met for the first time at the Mayo Hotel in Tulsa in 1945. Gilcrease would eventually persuade the young Crumbo to join him as artist-in-residence at the nascent Thomas Gilcrease Museum. Potawatomi, French, and German by birth, Crumbo was orphaned young and fostered within various Native traditions. His genius knew no tribal borders, but he supported and promoted Indian art and artists throughout his life, as an educator, director of art at Bacone College, consultant to Gilcrease, and early adopter of printmaking methods that expanded the audience for Native fine art.
The Gilcrease Museum has the honor of possessing the largest extant body of Crumbo's delightful and finely crafted work, which is celebrated and interpreted within the pages of this book.