TU Professor Helps Write Catalog for Osage Art Exhibition

Wednesday, February 25, 2004

University of Tulsa anthropology professor Garrick Bailey is the author of most of the 216-page catalog for an exhibition March 13 to Aug. 8 in St. Louis that is described as the first major showing of the art and culture of the Osage people.

The "Art of the Osage" exhibition in the Shoenberg Exhibition Galleries of the Saint Louis Art Museum will feature more than 100 works of art from 1750 to the present day. The display coincides with bicentennial observances of the Lewis and Clark expedition.

Bailey, who joined TU in 1968, specializes in Native American Indian culture and the impact of European contact on indigenous people. He has worked extensively with the Osage.

Bailey wrote the catalog’s introduction and four of its seven chapters. Three chapters span 1670 to 1900, covering Osage economic and political history, traditional Osage tribal religion, and daily life in the early and middle part of the 19th century. The other chapter discusses the Osage’s growing wealth and its effects on their lifestyle.

Objects on display range from engraved pipes and quirts to decorated blankets and shields. Most are utilitarian items, says Bailey, but all were chosen for their aesthetic qualities. "Most of their art is incorporated into objects of daily or religious use," he says. "Osage craftspeople tried to make all objects as beautiful as possible."

Information is available at www.slam.org or by calling the museum at (314) 721-0072.