Important Content Areas
Since the founding of the Gilcrease Museum, passionate researchers, curators, students and writers have studied the collections and shared their observations in papers, books, journals and magazine articles. A small number of articles about the collections are republished within these anthology pages. As other parts of the collections are catalogued and photographed, additional writings and material for browsing will be published here.
The Art Collection
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.
The Archive/Library Collection
Thomas Gilcrease is known as having been a collector of Americana at a time when few others were interested in materials relating to the history of the Western Hemisphere. The archive and library collection — which contains manuscripts, books, photographs, maps, imprints, and broadsides — expanded to include nearly 100,000 items.
The Anthropology Collection
Anthropology is the study of humanity in all dimensions: cultural, social, historical, biological, and linguistic. At Gilcrease, the anthropology collection and the work of the Department of Anthropology focus on the cultural history of North, Central, and South America, from the first prehistoric populations up to the present-day.
The Spanish Colonial Manuscript Collection (Conway)
Housed in the Helmerich Center for American Research, the entire archive contains over 100,000 books, manuscripts, documents, and maps ranging from 1494 to the present.
Eddie Faye Gates K-12 Teaching Resource Guides
Educators and our Gilcrease team selected themes from the Eddie Faye Gates Tulsa Race Massacre Collection and created four K-12 guides for K-2, 3-5, Middle School, and High School levels. Students will see photographs and hear stories from the historic Greenwood district by listening to video interviews with survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.
The John Ross Papers Collection
John Ross (1790-1866) was Principal Chief of the Cherokee during the most critical time in Cherokee history - the Cherokee Removal Period and the establishment of the Cherokee Nation. Gilcrease Museum is proud to be the home of the John Ross Papers, a collection of rare documents spanning over 11 linear feet of shelving space and comprised of more than 2,000 documents.
The Eddie Faye Gates Tulsa Race Massacre Collection
Learn how this high school teacher used her passion for history and justice to help recover silenced voices from the past. For decades, this local hero documented the memories and lived experiences of Oklahomans that most history books left out.
The 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, two of the most significant American artists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
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.
Charles M. Russell Art & Archives
Charles Marion Russell (1864-1926) remains one of the most significant and beloved American artists of the early 20th century. In his lifetime, he completed more than 4,000 paintings and sculptures, many of which have become fundamental cultural icons — essential images of western American life. Russell’s depictions of cowboys, American Indians, historical figures, and western fauna are among the most well-known portrayals of the late 19th and early 20th century western experience.
Indigenous Artists Biographies
Of the more than 200 Indigenous painters in the Gilcrease collection, 47 were selected for this project. Of those, biographies were written for 10 artists, giving further context to their life and work.
Mary Nimmo and Thomas Moran Art Selections
90 items were selected to represent various aspects of the couple’s individual careers, their collaborative efforts, and their work in a variety of mediums. The research and writing team was Luce scholar Dr. Sandra Pauly, and project advisor, art historian, and Moran scholar Professor Joni Kinsey of the University of Iowa; and the Gilcrease’s senior curator Laura Fry.