Benjamin Harjo Jr. (Absentee Shawnee/Seminole), 1945-2023
Exhibition Dates
August 8, 2023 -
Location Details
Lower Level outside Case Trading Post
Featured Image Details Below
A small tribute to Ben Harjo Jr, who was a great supporter of the Wheelwright Museum. This exhibition combines work in the Museum’s collection with work held privately, including his paints, woodblock printing press, his signature beret and harmonica, and sketchbooks, kindly loaned to the exhibition. Here can be seen his small sculptural work made as ornaments for benefit events and pen and ink drawings that were printed as holiday cards, as well as key works. We hope to provide some insight into the work, character and gifts of an artist who was continuously creating and drawing, finding no surface too mundane to be sketched upon. We are very grateful to all the private lenders.
Harjo was born in Clovis, New Mexico and moved to Oklahoma as a teenager. Leaving Oklahoma at eighteen he boarded a Greyhound bus bound for the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, hoping to begin his art formation in cartooning. The program had recently closed but he nevertheless pursued his studio practice and earned an Associates of Arts degree. After serving in Vietnam (1969-1971) Harjo took a BA in Fine Arts at Oklahoma State University, moving to Tulsa to launch what would be a long and successful career. Harjo is known for the vibrance of his work which fuses abstract and figurative elements with saturated color to create complex, dazzling, imagery. The Wheelwright had a smaller showing of his work in 1990s, and mounted the more significant exhibit The Earth, the Moon, and the Stars Above in 2004-2005. A catalogue of this exhibition is available at the Case Trading Post.
Featured Image Details
When Butterflies Could Sing (1996) Wheelwright Museum Collection
Currently On View
Jim and Lauris Phillips Center for the Study of Southwestern Jewelry.
Art in public spaces, including murals, can serve as a vehicle for dialogue about history, describe relationships, and depict the resilience of the community in the hope to create equity, agency, and healing.
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