New Directions: An Insider’s Look at Native American Collections
Okla Homma
A tour for President’s Circle members with an optional overnight extension to Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art
October 11-15, 2022
Okla Homma, which means “red people” in Chickasaw and Choctaw, is home to 39 tribes, including Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, Osage and Seminole. Though many arrived from the east in the early 1800s on the Trail of Tears or were otherwise forcibly relocated there, today these tribes own nearly half of the land in Oklahoma and are established members of American society – albeit with a complex and painful history.
Join us as we begin in Oklahoma City, where a visit at the newly-opened First Americans Museum will introduce us to the “39.” We will also see extraordinary collections of Native art at the Oklahoma Judicial Center, National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum and, in Norman, the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art. Then on to Tulsa by way of Pawhuska, the base for the Osage tribal government since 1872, where we will engage with local leaders and artists to learn how identity is championed through history and art. In Tulsa we will visit artist studios and the renowned Philbrook Museum of Art, and enjoy dinner at the private club of an SAR supporter. End our tour in Tahlequah, established as the capital of the Cherokee Nation in 1839 and today is the capital to two federally recognized Cherokee tribes.
For those interested in adding an extra day, travel to Bentonville for a special visit at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. The special exhibition there has a piece by a past SAR Artist Fellow – well worth the visit.
Our experience will be informed by Tour Lecturer Jordan Cocker (Kiowa), a PhD candidate in Museum Studies who holds curatorial positions at Osage Nation Museum, Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University, and Gilcrease Museum.
Review the full tentative itinerary here: SAR Trip to Oklahoma Itinerary October 2022.
If you are interested in learning more about the trip and becoming a President’s Circle member, please click here.
TOUR PRICE
Double Accommodation
Price per person in a Room with a King or two Queen Beds: $3,650*
Single Accommodation
Price per person in a Room with a King Bed ($550 single supp.): $4,200*
*Includes a $500 non-refundable tax-deductible donation to SAR.
SOLD OUT – SUPPLEMENT FOR POST-TOUR OPTION TO BENTONVILLE, AR – SOLD OUT
REGISTER HERE
Highlights
- Meet Justice Yvonne Kauger, a champion of Native American law and co-founder of the nationally known Red Earth Festival, who hand-picked a remarkable collection of Native art pieces that grace the hallways and rooms at the Oklahoma Judicial Center. We will enjoy a catered reception and dinner with invited guests from Oklahoma City in OJC’s Great Hall.
- VIP tour at First Americans Museum (opened in September 2021) with Heather Ahtone, Director-Curatorial Affairs. We hope to be welcomed by James Pepper Henry, FAM director and CEO (formerly at the Heard Museum in Phoenix). Subject to his availability
- Curator-led tour at the University of Oklahoma’s Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, including a behind-the-scenes viewing of objects from storage
- Guided tour of the extraordinary collection of Native art and artifacts at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum
- Travel to Pawhuska – center of the Osage Nation — for a special visit at the Osage-owned Big Rain Gallery, which features established and up-and-coming Native artists, with owners Addie Roanhouse and Jill Jones. They will invite local guests to lead a thought-provoking discussion about Osage identity today.
- Visit the studios of acclaimed mother-and-son artists Anita Fields (Osage) and Yatika Starr Fields (Cherokee, Creek, Osage). Subject to their availability
- Curator-led tour at the Philbrook Museum of Art, which boasts one of the finest surveys of 20th-century Native art. We will enjoy a gallery tour and also a behind-the-scenes look at select works pulled from storage (outstanding Pueblo pots and basketry, as well as some contemporary pieces).
- Free afternoon in Tulsa. Consider visiting Greenwood Rising, a newly constructed museum and history center that tells the story of Greenwood (also known as Black Wall Street, as it was home to one of the US’s most prominent concentrations of African-American businesses) and the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre that destroyed it; the newly opened Bob Dylan Center; and the Woody Guthrie Center.
- Travel east of Tulsa to Tahlequah, established as the capital of the Cherokee Nation in 1839, where we will take a walking tour of a number of original Cherokee government buildings in the historic district.
- Accompanied throughout by Michael F. Brown, SAR President; Helen Brooks, SAR Director of Leadership Giving; and a Tour Director to manage logistics.
POST-TOUR OPTIONAL TO BENTONVILLE, AR (SOLD OUT):
- Morning VIP tour at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art; and lunch and afternoon at the Museum of Native American History with founder David Bogle and Director Charlotte Buchanan-Yale.