Woody Crumbo

Woodrow "Woody" Crumbo
Rites of Spring, serigraph
Born	January 21, 1912 Lexington, Oklahoma
Died	April 4, 1989 Cimarron, New Mexico
Occupation	Artist

Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Crumbo (January 21, 1912—April 4, 1989) (Potawatomi) was an artist, flautist, and dancer who lived and worked mostly in the West of the United States. As an independent prospector in New Mexico in the late 1950s, he found one of the largest beryllium veins in the nation, valued at millions of dollars.

His paintings are held by several major museums, including the Smithsonian Institution and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, with a large collection at the Thomas Gilcrease Institute in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Crumbo was a 1978 inductee into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame for his paintings. He was appointed as an "ambassador of good will" for Oklahoma in 1982 by Governor George Nigh.

Born near Lexington, Oklahoma, Crumbo moved with his mother to Kansas as a child after the death of his father in 1916. Orphaned in 1919, he spent the rest of his childhood living with various American Indian families around Sand Springs, Oklahoma. When Crumbo was 17, he began studying art at the Chilocco Indian Agricultural School, also taking up the study of the Kiowa ceremonial wooden flute. Later he soloed on this instrument in performance with the Wichita Symphony.

At the age of 19, Crumbo earned a scholarship to the Wichita American Indian Institute. He graduated three years later as valedictorian. Crumbo continue his studies at Wichita University from 1933 to 1936, where he studied mural technique with Olle Nordmark, watercolor with Clayton Staples, and painting and drawing with Oscar Jacobson. In 1936 Crumbo enrolled at the University of Oklahoma, where he studied for two years with Oscar Jacobson.

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