Oscar B. Jacobson photographs of Native Artists

Content Description

The Oscar B. Jacobson photographs of Native Artists collection consists of seventeen photographic prints, mainly taken by Oscar B. Jacobson in Oklahoma between 1917 and 1950. Jacobson was the Director of the University of Oklahoma School of Art for several decades in the first half of the twentieth century, mentoring many young Native men and women artists. This collection includes photographs of some of the many students who studied under Jacobson and later emerged as prominent artists, such as the group known as the Kiowa Six, consisting of one Kiowa woman and five Kiowa men. Photographs of other artists who studied with Jacobson include Jemez Pueblo artist Jose Toledo, Oklahoma Muskogee (Creek) and Chaticks Si Chaticks (Pawnee) artist Acee Blue Eagle, and Southern Tsitsistas/Suhtai (Southern Cheyenne) artist Richard West, Sr.

Arrangement

This collection is arranged chronologically into folders.

Biographical / Historical

Oscar Brousse Jacobson was born in 1882 in Sweden. While still in his youth he immigrated to the United States, receiving his bachelor's degree in 1908 from Bethany College in Lindsborg, Kansas. He pursued studies abroad in Denmark, France, and his native Sweden, before receiving his Master of Fine Arts degree from Yale University, and later a doctorate from Bethany College.

From 1915 until 1954 Jacobson directed the University of Oklahoma's School of Art, mentoring a great many Native men and women during these years. In addition to his work as a professor, Jacobson was also an accomplished painter of portraits and landscapes. He died in Norman, Oklahoma, in 1966.