Trail of Tears

Diane O'Leary

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About The Artwork

Another perfectly elegant composition by the incomparable Diane O'Leary.

With sparse lines and subtle shades of color, she has conveyed beautifully the despair of a catastrophic event affecting a culture of people. You can feel the strength of the wind, driving these figures onward!

 In the 1830's thousands of Choctaw people were relocated along a route referred to as the Trail of Tears as roughly 1/3 of these people died in the process.

About The Artist

(Born 1935) Diane O'Leary paints to find evidence of what has transpired on this planet during her given era. She attended Texas Christian University, Bacone College, Harvard and Stanford, but never took a course in art. Her graduate degrees are in Southwestern archeology and in Baroque Literature (music).

O'Leary started her artistic career in 1967 and studied with Eric Gibbard and Georgia O'Keefe.

Today her paintings are in most of the public and private collections of American Indian art. Public collections including Diane O'Leary's work are: Berne Museum in Berne, Switzerland; the Denver Art Museum in Colorado; the Solomon Guggenheim Museum in New York; the Heard Museum in Phoenix, Arizona; the Museum of American Indian, Heye Foundation in New York; the Mitchell Indian Museum at Kendall College in Evanston, Illinois; the Millicent Rogers Foundation Museum in Taos. New Mexico; the Philbrook Art Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma; the Peabody Museum at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts; Stanford University in California and the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

In recent years O'Leary has largely focused on making quilts which at times relate well to her style of painting. At other times they are largely abstract--but all are hand stitched with care and a fabulous sense of design. Loon Quilt produced in 1996 is featured on page 90 of a fine publication To Honor and Comfort Native Quilting Traditions (1997).

The Living Waters of Tillamook Bay is a series of collages by Diane O’Leary, reflecting the biodiversity of the flora and fauna of the estuarine environment of Tillamook Bay, Oregon. Tillamook Bay is located on the northern Oregon coast and is a unique habitat among Pacific coast bays, because it is fed by five rivers located within the watershed. By Spring 2008 she will have completed 124 collages referencing this theme. These will travel nationwide to bring this environmental reality to the attention of many.

Other Works By Artist:

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Cultures

American Indian, Women Artists

Medium

Paintings

Subject

American Indians, Horses, Female

Keywords

"Leary, O", Diane OLeary painting