Carl Sweezy (c. 1879–1953) was a Southern

Arapaho The Arapaho ( ; , ) are a Native American people historically living on the plains of Colorado and Wyoming. They were close allies of the Cheyenne tribe and loosely aligned with the Lakota and Dakota. By the 1850s, Arapaho bands formed t ...

painter from

Oklahoma Oklahoma ( ; Choctaw language, Choctaw: , ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Texas to the south and west, Kansas to the north, Missouri to the northea ...

. He painted individual portraits, but was best known for his portrayals of ceremonies and dances.Wyckoff, 243-44

Background

Carl Sweezy was born around 1879 near the Darlington Agency on the Cheyenne and Arapaho Indian Reservation in

Indian Territory Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally described an evolving land area set aside by the Federal government of the United States, United States government for the relocation of Native Americans in the United States, ...

. His Arapaho name was Wó’oteen (new Arapaho orthography; old spelling - Wattan), meaning "Black." Sweezy's father was Hinan Ba Seth, meaning "Big Man." His tribe still hunted buffalo when he was a child.Wyckoff, 23 Sweezy's mother died early, so he lived full-time at the

Mennonite Mennonites are a group of Anabaptism, Anabaptist Christianity, Christian communities tracing their roots to the epoch of the Radical Reformation. The name ''Mennonites'' is derived from the cleric Menno Simons (1496–1561) of Friesland, part of ...

Mission School at Darlington Agency. He later attended the Mennonite Boarding School of

Halstead, Kansas Halstead is a city in Harvey County, Kansas, United States. Halstead was named in honor of Murat Halstead, a respected Civil War correspondent and newspaper editor. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 2,179. History F ...

, Carlisle Indian Boarding School in

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

, Daniel C. Swan, 72 and

Chilocco Indian Agricultural School Chilocco Indian School (/ʃɪˈlɑkoʊ/) was an agricultural school for Native Americans in the United States, Native Americans on reserved land in north-central Oklahoma from 1884 to 1980. It was approximately 20 miles north of Ponca City, Okla ...

, north of Ponca City, Oklahoma. For a season Sweezy was a professional baseball player, and later he worked as a tribal policeman. Although he never received formal art training, he loved drawing and painting from an early age. An agency employee encouraged him with a gift of watercolor paints.

Artwork

Around 1895, when Sweezy was 14 years old, ethnographer

James Mooney James Mooney (February 10, 1861 – December 22, 1921) was an American ethnographer who lived for several years among the Cherokee. Known as "The Indian Man", he conducted major studies of Southeastern Indians, as well as of tribes on the Great ...

commissioned Sweezy to paint images of traditional Arapaho life. Later, Sweezy also worked with anthropologist George Dorsey.Morand et al, 107 Sweezy continued to be a prolific painter, expanding his media and materials into the mid-20th century.Wyckoff, 243 By the 1920s Sweezy was a full-time painter. Sweezy worked in watercolors on paper and oil on canvas, as well as house paint on board. He was one of Cheyenne artist Dick West's first artistic mentors. Although he painted individual portraits, he is known for his portrayals of ceremonies and dances, sometimes with over a dozen individual figures, with implied action and narrative. Sweezy developed a technique, employed by later Southern Plains artists, of painting an active

Native American Church The Native American Church (NAC), also known as Peyotism and Peyote Religion, is a Syncretism, syncretic Native American religion that teaches a combination of traditional Native Americans in the United States, Native American beliefs and eleme ...

meeting by rolling up the

tipi A tipi or tepee ( ) is a conical lodge tent that is distinguished from other conical tents by the smoke flaps at the top of the structure, and historically made of animal hides or pelts or, in more recent generations, of canvas stretched on ...

flaps to reveal the participants inside.Swan, 74

Public collections

Sweezy's work can be found in the following public art collections: *

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 ...

* Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art * The George Gustav Heye Center *

Gilcrease Museum Gilcrease Museum, also known as the Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art, is a museum northwest of downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma housing the world's largest, most comprehensive collection of art of the American West, as well as a gr ...

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 ...

*Indian Arts and Crafts Board,

US Department of the Interior The United States Department of the Interior (DOI) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the management and conservation of most federal lands and natural resources. It also administers programs relating t ...

Oklahoma History Center The Oklahoma History Center (OHC) is the history museum of the state of Oklahoma. Located on an plot across the street from the Governor's mansion at 800 Nazih Zuhdi Drive in Oklahoma City, the current museum opened in 2005 and is operated by ...

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 ...

, Washington DC *

Oklahoma Museum of Natural History The Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History is the officially designated natural history museum for the State of Oklahoma, located on the campus of the University of Oklahoma. The museum was founded in 1899 by an act of the Oklahoma Territ ...

Philbrook Museum of Art Philbrook Museum of Art is an art museum with expansive formal gardens located in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The museum, which opened in 1939, is located in a former 1920s villa, "Villa Philbrook", the home of Oklahoma oil pioneer Waite Phillips and his ...

Southwest Museum The Southwest Museum of the American Indian was a museum, library, and archive located in the Mt. Washington neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, United States, above the north-western bank of the Arroyo Seco canyon and stream. The museum ...

, Los Angeles *

University of Oklahoma The University of Oklahoma (OU) is a Public university, public research university in Norman, Oklahoma, United States. Founded in 1890, it had existed in Oklahoma Territory near Indian Territory for 17 years before the two territories became the ...

, LibraryLester, 537

Death

Carl Sweezy died on May 28, 1953 in

Lawton, Oklahoma Lawton is a city in and the county seat of Comanche County, Oklahoma, Comanche County, in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. Located in western Oklahoma, approximately southwest of Oklahoma City, it is the principal city of the Lawton metropolitan ar ...

Quotes

''The corn road, we found, was different from the buffalo road in more ways than anyone, white or Indian, had realized, and the old people could not learn it in a hurry.'' —Carl Sweezy ''With war horses running, feathers and banners flying on the wind from spears and lances, shields and quivers shining at men's sides and shoulders, and women singing war songs for their men, I think a war party setting out, or coming in victorious, must have been one of the splendid things in life to see. If I had to miss that, I have had the next best thing: I have seen old warriors wearing their fine trappings, and I have heard them tell their stories...'' –Carl Sweezy, 1950

Notes

References

* Lester, Patrick D. ''The Biographical Directory of Native American Painters''. Norman and London: The Oklahoma University Press, 1995. . * Morand, Ann, Kevin Smith, Daniel C. Swan, and Sarah Erwin. ''Treasures of Gilcrease: Selections from the Permanent Collection.'' Tulsa, OK: Gilcrease Museum, 2003. . * Swan, Daniel C.'' Peyote Religious Art: Symbols of Faith and Belief.'' Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 1999. * Wyckoff, Lydia L., ed. ''Visions and Voices: Native American painting from the Philbrook Museum of Art''. Tulsa, OK: Philbrook Museum of Art, 1996. .

External links

Carl Sweezy artwork in the Smithsonian Institution's collection
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sweezy, Carl Arapaho people Native American painters Native American Church Painters from Oklahoma People from Canadian County, Oklahoma 1879 births 1953 deaths 20th-century American painters American male painters Carlisle Indian Industrial School alumni Native American male artists 20th-century American male artists