For sale is an original graphite drawing by Oklahoma artist Tom Phillips (1927-2005)
Titled "SACRED COTTONWOOD"
Medium: Graphite on thin rice paper
It features Native American Plains Indians in an encampment around a tall Cottonwood tree with the chief on horseback holding a branch as he looks upon the great tree.
The detailing is superb and intricate.
The artist has signed the piece on the bottom right.
Condition: some areas of scratches and small paper tears which are all detailed in our pictures. One area of browning. The frame having nicks and wear. See all pictures as they are an important part of our description
Measurements
Frame -
Sight -
Artwork - 24" x 18"
Tom Phillips was born in Chickasha, Oklahoma. His great grandfather Thomas Jefferson Phillips, who had some Native American blood, ventured to Oklahoma in the 1850s, married a Native American woman and became a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation.
By the age of nine, Phillips showed so much interest in drawing he was sent to the Helen Lorenze Art School in Oklahoma City. There, he studied the fundamentals of perspective, anatomy and drawing landscapes until he was 16. Since then, he has studied at Phillips University in Enid, Oklahoma, the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, and the Kansas City Art Institute.
Phillips also studied privately with David Kreitzer out of Mill Valley, California and Mark Anstending of San Francisco, California who instructed him in the esoterics of sight and sound. Phillips then spent 20 years working as a commercial illustrator in New York, Colorado Springs and Kansas City in order to support himself.
In 1970, he began devoting his time to painting and sculptures. He spent much time visiting ranches, reservations and scenic attractions of the west in order to record the local color. The distinguishing characteristic of his work is his ability to capture subtle expressions and quiet, tender moments of reflection. Many consider him the poet of the Western artists.
Phillips painted the mural behind the "Lakota Buffalo Days" Diorama housed in the Akta Lakota Museum at St. Joseph's Indian School in Chamberlain, SD.