Bill Rabbit | |
---|---|
Born | William E. Rabbit December 3, 1946 |
Died | April 9, 2012 65) | (aged
Nationality | Cherokee Nation |
Known for | Cherokee Art |
Spouse | Karen Rabbit |
Awards | Master Artist by the Five civilized Tribes Museum (1986) |
Website | https://billandtracirabbit.com/ |
Bill Rabbit was an Oklahoma Native artist who experimented with various styles, painting as he felt rather than according to public expectations. Rabbit exhibited his art in numerous locations and won many awards over the period of his artistic career. In 1986, he was designated Master Artist by the Five Civilized Tribes Museum. Toward the end of his life, Rabbit began collaborating on paintings with his daughter Traci, in their mutual studio located in Pryor, OK. On April 9, 2012, Rabbit died. [1]
Bill Rabbit was born in Casper, Wyoming on December 3, 1946, to parents Swimmer Dave Rabbit and Doris M.E.H Rabbit. He attended school in Casper, where he was the only Cherokee student in the school system. His talent showed early on in his kindergarten class. Rabbit sold his first watercolor in the fourth grade for $4, exhibiting his business savvy. Rabbit has no formal training in art apart from a two-week class in grade school. [2] After high school, Rabbit was accepted to the Institute of American Indian Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico but enlisted in the army instead to serve in Vietnam. [3] Following the war, Rabbit moved to his father's homestead allotment in Mazie, Oklahoma. In Maize, he made Southwestern jewelry with his welding skills. Later, Rabbit took up painting full time and he and his wife began to travel to booth shows and galleries across the country. [4]
Rabbit began painting as he felt rather than in a more traditional style according to what the public wanted. He was part of a wave of artists that broke from the older generation of native artists. Over time, Rabbit's subject matter has evolved from the realistic to the ethereal. [5]
Rabbit's work is widely known and was exhibited in numerous locations, including: [5]
Bill's work is also featured in numerous public and private galleries.Some of his greatest achievements include:
The Bill Rabbit Legacy Art Scholarship was created in Rabbit's honor by the Cherokee Nation Foundation. [6]
The Five Civilized Tribes Museum in Muskogee, Oklahoma, showcases the art, history, and culture of the so-called "Five Civilized Tribes": the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee (Creek), and Seminole tribes. Housed in the historic Union Indian Agency building, the museum opened in 1966.
John Mix Stanley was an artist-explorer, an American painter of landscapes, and Native American portraits and tribal life. Born in the Finger Lakes region of New York, he started painting signs and portraits as a young man. In 1842 he traveled to the American West to paint Native American life. In 1846 he exhibited a gallery of 85 of his paintings in Cincinnati and Louisville. During the Mexican–American War, he joined Colonel Stephen Watts Kearney's expedition to California and painted accounts of the campaign, as well as aspects of the Oregon Territory.
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Gina Gray : was an Osage artist born in Pawhuska, Oklahoma, to Andrew and Margaret Gray. She was the great-granddaughter of Henry Roan Horse. She is one of the most renowned Native American contemporary artists of the past three decades, having won awards from and held exhibits at many museums and art shows throughout Indian Country.
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Valjean McCarty Hessing was a Choctaw painter, who worked in the Bacone flatstyle. Throughout her career, she won 9- awards for her work and was designated a Master Artist by the Five Civilized Tribes Museum in 1976. Her artworks are in collections of the Heard Museum of Phoenix, Arizona; the Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa, Oklahoma; the Southern Plains Indian Museum in Anadarko, Oklahoma; and the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian of Santa Fe, New Mexico, among others.
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