Amanda Crowe (July 16, 1928 – September 27, 2004) was an

Eastern Band Cherokee The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI), (Cherokee: ᏣᎳᎩᏱ ᏕᏣᏓᏂᎸᎩ, ''Tsalagiyi Detsadanilvgi'') is a federally recognized Indian tribe based in western North Carolina in the United States. They are descended from the small ...

woodcarver and educator from

Cherokee, North Carolina Cherokee () is a census-designated place (CDP) in Swain and Jackson counties in Western North Carolina, United States, within the Qualla Boundary land trust. Cherokee is located in the Oconaluftee River Valley around the intersection of U.S. ...

in the United States. A graduate of the

School of the Art Institute of Chicago The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) is a Private university, private art school associated with the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) in Chicago, Illinois. Tracing its history to an art students' cooperative founded in 1866, which gr ...

, her work has been widely exhibited and is held by a number of museums. Crowe dedicated much of her career to teaching and training the next generation of Eastern Cherokee artists.

Early life

Crowe was born on July 16, 1928, in

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, North Carolina. By the age of four, she had decided to become an artist. Of her childhood, she said: "Every spare minute was spent in carving or studying anything available concerning art ... "Power, 184 At the age of eight, she was already selling her carvings. Both of Crowe's parents died when she was very young. By the time she reached high school, her foster mother arranged for her to stay in Chicago, where she graduated from Hyde Park High School and attended the

(SAIC). She earned SAIC's

John Quincy Adams John Quincy Adams (; July 11, 1767 – February 23, 1848) was the sixth president of the United States, serving from 1825 to 1829. He previously served as the eighth United States secretary of state from 1817 to 1825. During his long diploma ...

fellowship for foreign study in 1952, and she chose to study sculpture with Jose De Creeft at the

Instituto Allende The Instituto Allende is a visual arts school in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. The institute provides a range of courses, and offers a BA in Visual Arts and an MA in Fine arts in association with the Universidad de Guanajuato. Its courses and d ...

San Miguel de Allende San Miguel de Allende () is the principal city in the Municipalities of Mexico, municipality of San Miguel de Allende (municipality), San Miguel de Allende, located in the far eastern part of Guanajuato, Mexico. A part of the Bajío region, the t ...

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

. Crowe also earned her

Master of Fine Arts A Master of Fine Arts (MFA or M.F.A.) is a terminal degree in fine arts, including visual arts, creative writing, graphic design, photography, filmmaking, dance, theatre, other performing arts and in some cases, theatre management or arts admi ...

degree from SAIC that year.Conley, 77

Art and teaching career

In 1953, the Cherokee Historical Association invited Crowe back to North Carolina to teach studio art at Cherokee High School, where her uncle Goingback Chiltoskey was already teaching. She set up a studio in the Paint Town community and taught wood carving for almost four decades to over 2,000 students. Her sculptures were often animal figures, and she was particularly known for her expressive bears. Her work is streamlined, highly stylized, and smoothly carved. She also worked with stone and clay, but wood was her favorite medium, and she carved with local woods such as wild cherry, buckeye, and black walnut. Her art is sometimes compared to the work of Willard Stone. Art scholar Esther Bockhoff writes that Crowe was "undoubtedly one of the primary influences on the resurgence of Cherokee carving." Public collections that own her work include the

Cleveland Museum of Natural History The Cleveland Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum in University Circle, a district of educational, cultural and medical institutions approximately five miles (8 km) east of Downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States. The ...

, the

United States Department of the Interior The United States Department of the Interior (DOI) is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government responsible for the management and conservation ...

, and the

National Museum of the American Indian The National Museum of the American Indian is a museum in the United States devoted to the culture of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. It is part of the Smithsonian Institution group of museums and research centers. The museum has three ...

. She exhibited her work in such museums as the

Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the United States. The museum is based in the Art Institute of Chicago Building in Chicago's Grant Park (Chicago), Grant Park. Its collection, stewa ...

, the Atlanta Art Museum, the

Denver Art Museum The Denver Art Museum (DAM) is an art museum located in the Civic Center of Denver, Colorado. With an encyclopedic collection of more than 70,000 diverse works from across the centuries and world, the DAM is one of the largest art museums betwe ...

, the

Mint Museum of Art The Mint Museum, also referred to as The Mint Museums, is a cultural institution comprising two museums, located in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Mint Museum Randolph and Mint Museum Uptown, together these two locations have hundreds of collecti ...

in Charlotte, the

Asheville Art Museum The Asheville Art Museum is a nonprofit visual art organization in Western North Carolina (WNC) and is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums. The museum is located on the center square of downtown Asheville, 2 South Pack Square at Pack Pl ...

, and venues in Germany and the United Kingdom. Among many awards, Crowe won the North Carolina Folk Heritage Award in 2000. She also illustrated the book ''Cherokee Legends and the Trail of Tears'', first published in 1956 and reprinted several times since.

Death and legacy

Crowe died on September 27, 2004. Many of the contemporary Eastern Band Cherokee sculptors today studied under her. On November 9, 2018,

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recognized her with a

doodle A doodle is a drawing made while a person's attention is otherwise occupied. Doodles are simple drawings that can have concrete representational meaning or may just be composed of random and abstract art, abstract lines or shapes, generally w ...

Notes

References

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External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Crowe, Amanda Eastern Band Cherokee women artists Eastern Band Cherokee artists Native American woodcarvers Sculptors from North Carolina 1928 births 2004 deaths School of the Art Institute of Chicago alumni Instituto Allende alumni People from Cherokee, North Carolina 20th-century American sculptors 20th-century American women sculptors Women woodcarvers American woodcarvers 20th-century American educators Educators from North Carolina American women illustrators 20th-century American illustrators Native American illustrators Native American women illustrators 20th-century American women educators 20th-century Native American artists 21st-century Native American artists 20th-century Native American women 21st-century Native American women North Carolina Heritage Award winners