Sacred Rain Arrow, a bronze sculpture by the late Apache artist Allan Houser, welcomes visitors to the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Photo from Facebook
James Pepper Henry, a member of the Kaw Nation, is back in Oklahoma and is serving as the executive director of Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa. He's encouraging voters to support an $65 million capital expansion plan to better showcase Indian art and other treasures at the facility:
I moved to Oklahoma in the early-1990s to help my tribe, the Kaw Nation, establish its tribal museum. I was recruited as the inaugural director because I was the only enrolled tribal member with museum experience. Prior to that, I worked as curator of American Indian Art at the Portland Art Museum. Then, there were not many Native peoples working in museums and the opportunities for advancement were essentially non-existent in Oklahoma. After four years working and living in Kaw City, I was recruited by another Okie, W. Richard West, Jr. to join the team that was creating the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian, with locations in New York City and Washington, D.C. This was a unique and invaluable experience that helped advance my career and over the next 20 years I went on to become that museum’s associate director, director and CEO of the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center in Anchorage, Alaska, and director and CEO of the Heard Museum in Phoenix, Arizona. Last year I learned that Gilcrease Museum was recruiting for a new executive director.Get the Story:
James Pepper Henry: A cultural renaissance is happening in Tulsa (The Tulsa World 2/28)
Join the Conversation