About the Artist

(Kiowa artist 1914-1988)  Born in Carnegie, Oklahoma, Big Bow was a grandson of Chief Big Bow. He attended the University of Oklahoma in the late 1930’s. A varied career included work as a set painter for western movies, a builder and a contractor as well as a painter.

Big Bow created murals in the RCA Building in New York and at the Southwest Museum in Los Angeles, California. Big Bow also designed the red and yellow thunderbird insignia of the Oklahoma 45th Infantry Division.

His paintings are in such collections as the Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art in Tulsa, Oklahoma; Heritage Center, Inc. Collection at the Red Cloud Indian School in Pine Ridge, South Dakota; Oklahoma Historical Society Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation in New York; Philbrook Art Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma; Southwest Museum in Los Angeles and the Wichita Art Museum in Wichita, Kansas.