The Gilcrease Art Collection of paintings, sculptures, drawings, and prints represents artists and subjects from across North America. From colonial portraiture in New England, to 20th-century modernism in the Southwest, to contemporary Native American artists, the collection features more than 13,000 artworks spanning 400 years, forming one of the world’s most comprehensive views of American art.
Historically, Gilcrease publications and exhibitions have highlighted artwork and artists of the American West. However, in addition to significant western collections, Gilcrease contains artwork of New England, of the South, of the Midwest, of the Pacific Northwest, and of Canada and Mexico. Furthermore, Gilcrease archive and anthropology collections provide a broad context of the history and culture of the Americas, opening the art collection to new connections and new meanings.
As a whole, Gilcrease is uniquely positioned as an institution to tell a national story of American art that extends beyond traditional borders — encompassing artwork and narratives spanning the continent.
Indigenous Paintings at Gilcrease Museum
Gilcrease Museum’s collection of Native American paintings and drawings spans more than 150 years of visual expression, and includes nearly 2,500 works on a variety of mediums including hide, paper, and canvas...
Visit Indigenous Paintings HomepageThe Thomas and Mary Nimmo Moran Collection at Gilcrease Museum
Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma, holds one of the largest and most comprehensive collections of the work of Thomas Moran and his wife, Mary Nimmo Moran...
Visit Moran HomepageBuilding the Gilcrease Art Collection
Typical of the committed collector, Thomas Gilcrease put his collection together in various ways....
Read ArticleUnique Impressions: The Mechanics and Creativity of Printmaking
The printing of symbols or images has a long history. Rudimentary forms included carved seals pressed into clay or wax, stone rubbings, and designs cut in wood then printed on fabric...
Read ArticleBrowse: Gilcrease Museum’s Indigenous Paintings: Relationships between People, Artworks, and Material Culture
Mrs. Joseph Hopkinson
The woman wears a white gown, gold jewelry and an elusive expression in this portrait by famed artist Thomas Sully. Behind the serene composition and flushed complexion, however, is a great deal more. Sully began the piece on July 1, 1808, and finished it four days later...
Article: The Prints of Kananginak Pootoogook (1935-2010)
Born in 1935 at Cape Dorset, located on the southern end of Baffin Island in Nunavut, the northernmost territory of Canada, Kananginak Pootoogook came of age alongside the introduction of printmaking to the Inuit...