Tommy Wayne Cannon (September 27, 1946 – May 8, 1978) (

Kiowa Kiowa () people are a Native American tribe and an indigenous people of the Great Plains of the United States. They migrated southward from western Montana into the Rocky Mountains in Colorado in the 17th and 18th centuries,Pritzker 326 and e ...

) was an important Native American artist of the 20th century. He was popularly known as T. C. Cannon. He was an enrolled member of the

Tribe and also had Caddo and French ancestry.

Early life

Cannon grew up in Zodaltone and Gracemont, Oklahoma. His parents were Walter Cannon (Kiowa) and Minnie Ahdunko Cannon (Caddo). His Kiowa name, Pai-doung-a-day, means "One Who Stands in the Sun." He learned about the art of the

Kiowa Six The Kiowa Six, previously known as the Kiowa Five, is a group of six Kiowa artists from Oklahoma in the early 20th century, working in the "Kiowa style". The artists were Spencer Asah, James Auchiah, Jack Hokeah, Stephen Mopope, Monroe Tsatoke and L ...

, a group of Native American painters who achieved international reputations in the fine art world and who helped to develop the

Southern Plains The Great Plains (french: Grandes Plaines), sometimes simply "the Plains", is a broad expanse of flatland in North America. It is located west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains, much of it covered in prairie, steppe, and ...

Flatstyle of painting. Stephen Mopope and Lee Tsatoke Sr., grandson of Monroe Tsatoke, particularly influenced the young artist. T. C. Cannon enrolled in the

Institute of American Indian Arts The Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) is a public tribal land-grant college in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The college focuses on Native American art. It operates the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (MoCNA), which is housed in the historic S ...

(IAIA) in Santa Fe in 1964, where he studied painting with

Fritz Scholder Fritz William Scholder V (October 6, 1937 – February 10, 2005) was a Native American artist. Scholder was an enrolled member of the La Jolla Band of Luiseno Indians, a federally recognized tribe of Luiseños, a California Mission tribe. Schold ...

(

Luiseño The Luiseño or Payómkawichum are an indigenous people of California who, at the time of the first contacts with the Spanish in the 16th century, inhabited the coastal area of southern California, ranging from the present-day southern part of ...

). After graduating from IAIA, he enrolled in the San Francisco Art Institute but left after two months and enlisted in the army. As a paratrooper in the 101st Airborne Division, Cannon served in

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...

from 1967 to 1968. During the

Tet Offensive The Tet Offensive was a major escalation and one of the largest military campaigns of the Vietnam War. It was launched on January 30, 1968 by forces of the Viet Cong (VC) and North Vietnamese People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) against the force ...

, he earned two Bronze Star Medals. He was also inducted into the Black Leggings Society, the Kiowa warriors' society.

Art career

While still stationed in Vietnam, Cannon had a breakthrough in his art career. Rosemary Ellison, curator of the

Southern Plains Indian Museum Southern Plains Indian Museum is a Native American museum located in Anadarko, Oklahoma. It was opened in 1948 under a cooperative governing effort by the United States Department of the Interior and the Oklahoma state government. The museum feat ...

Anadarko, Oklahoma Anadarko is a city in Caddo County, Oklahoma, United States. The city is fifty miles southwest of Oklahoma City. The population was 5,745 at the 2020 census. It is the county seat of Caddo County. History Anadarko got its name when its post of ...

, included him in a major traveling exhibit, ''Contemporary Southern Plains Indian Art''. In 1972, Cannon and fellow artist Fritz Scholder had a two-man exhibition at the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

National Collection of Fine Arts The Smithsonian American Art Museum (commonly known as SAAM, and formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds ...

, titled ''Two American Painters.'' In this exhibition, Cannon and Scholder subverted visual stereotypes about Native Americans, creating an exploration "in irony and kitsch" which "opened up a new phase of contemporary art". Cannon produced a large body of work over the next six years, in preparation for his first one-man show, scheduled to open at the Aberbach Gallery in New York in October 1978. On May 8 of that year, he died in an automobile accident. After a delay, the show opened on December 10, 1979, as ''T.C. Cannon: A Memorial Exhibition.'' Featuring 50 works by Cannon, the show travelled to such locations as the

Heard Museum The Heard Museum is a private, not-for-profit museum in Phoenix, Arizona, United States, dedicated to the advancement of American Indian art. It presents the stories of American Indian people from a first-person perspective, as well as exhibitio ...

, the

New Mexico Museum of Art The New Mexico Museum of Art is an art museum in Santa Fe governed by the state of New Mexico. It is one of four state-run museums in Santa Fe that are part of the Museum of New Mexico. It is located at 107 West Palace Avenue, one block off the ...

, and the

Buffalo Bill Historical Center The Buffalo Bill Center of the West, formerly known as the Buffalo Bill Historical Center, is a complex of five museums and a research library featuring art and artifacts of the American West located in Cody, Wyoming. The five museums include the ...

Commissions

Cannon painted murals at the United Indians of All Tribes Foundation and the

Daybreak Star Cultural Center The Daybreak Star Indian Cultural Center is a Native American cultural center in Seattle, Washington, described by its parent organization United Indians of All Tribes as "an urban base for Native Americans in the Seattle area." Located on 2 ...

Seattle, Washington Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest region ...

, and the

Santa Fe Opera Santa Fe Opera (SFO) is an American opera company, located north of Santa Fe, New Mexico. After creating the ''Opera Association of New Mexico'' in 1956, its founding director, John Crosby, oversaw the building of the first opera house on a newl ...

Guild.

Honors

Cannon was an artist-in-residence at

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native ...

Hanover, New Hampshire Hanover is a town located along the Connecticut River in Grafton County, New Hampshire, United States. As of the 2020 census, its population was 11,870. The town is home to the Ivy League university Dartmouth College, the U.S. Army Corps of En ...

; Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado; and the United States

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational propert ...

. In 1988 he was posthumously inducted into the National Hall of Fame for Famous American Indians in Anadarko.Lester 95.

Death

Tommy Wayne Cannon died in an automobile accident southeast of Santa Fe on May 8, 1978.

Notes

References

* Ellison, Rosemary (1969), "Contemporary Southern Plains Indian Art," Anadarko: Oklahoma Indian Arts and Crafts Cooperative. * Frederick, Joan (1995), ''T. C. Cannon: He Stood in the Sun,'' Flagstaff, Arizona: Northland Publishing. . * Lester, Patrick D. (1995), ''The Biographical Directory of Native American Painters,'' Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. * Wallo, William (1990), ''T. C. Cannon: Native American (A New View of the West).'' Oklahoma City: The National Cowboy Hall of Fame. * Marshall, Ann E. (2017), ''Of God and Mortal Men: T.C. Cannon'', Museum of New Mexico Press, Santa Fe, NM, (October, 2017),