Gina Gray (Osage name: ''Pa-Pe Son-tse''): (1954 – 20 December 2014) was an Osage artist born in Pawhuska, Oklahoma, to Andrew and Margaret Gray. She was the great-granddaughter of Henry Roan Horse. She is one of the most renowned Native American contemporary artists of the past three decades, having won awards from and held exhibits at many museums and art shows throughout Indian Country.

Wounded Knee Occupation

While a high school student in 1973, Gray hitchhiked to Wounded Knee to participate in the 71-day occupation with a team of 200 Oglala Lakota activists and members of the

American Indian Movement The American Indian Movement (AIM) is a Native American grassroots movement which was founded in Minneapolis, Minnesota in July 1968, initially centered in urban areas in order to address systemic issues of poverty, discrimination, and police br ...

. The protest, intent on calling attention to failed government treaty agreements, poverty, racial tension, and conditions on the Pine Ridge Reservation, was the longest-running act of civil disobedience in US history. One of Gray's sisters, Mary BigHorse, was married to a high-ranking AIM member, Henry Wahwassauk. Two brothers, Andrew Gray and Louis Gray, met up with Gina in Denver and they made their way to a South Dakota safe house, where BigHorse was waiting, outside the occupation area. Under cover of darkness, they entered the compound, where they remained for the next month. Electricity, water and food supplies were cut off by federal marshals and national guardsmen in an attempt to break the standoff. Under heavy gunfire, Frank Clearwater, a Cherokee, and Buddy LaMonte, an Oglala Lakota, were killed. Gina and her brother Louis decided to leave, were smuggled out, and were reunited with their father in the safe house.

Education

After escaping from Wounded Knee, Gray and her brother Louis returned to finish high school at 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 ...

in Santa Fe, New Mexico. After graduating from IAIA, she studied commercial art the

California Institute of the Arts The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) is a private art university in Santa Clarita, California. It was incorporated in 1961 as the first degree-granting institution of higher learning in the US created specifically for students of both ...

Art career

Gray's work was characterized by bold, bright colors of mixed-media, which incorporate traditional images of her Osage upbringing with her contemporary world. Considered a master contemporary fine artist, her prints and monotypes feature stylized figures and abstract landscapes. Her commercial art extends from tee-shirt design, to the logo for the East Central University (Ada, Oklahoma) Hayes Native American Studies Center, to the cover design for the

National Congress of American Indians The National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) is an American Indian and Alaska Native rights organization. It was founded in 1944 to represent the tribes and resist federal government pressure for termination of tribal rights and assimilati ...

History book. Her work has been featured in exhibits at galleries throughout Indian country: in Arizona, 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 ...

in Phoenix; in New Mexico, the

Museum and the

Wheelwright Museum The Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian is a museum devoted to Native American arts. It is located in Santa Fe, New Mexico and was founded in 1937 by Mary Cabot Wheelwright, who came from Boston, and Hastiin Klah, a Navajo singer and medici ...

both in Santa Fe; in Oklahoma, Tsa-la-Gi Cherokee Center Museum, Tahlequah and

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 gro ...

and

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 ...

in Tulsa; in South Dakota, the Red Cloud Indian Art Museum in Pine Ridge; and in Washington state, the Daybreak Star Museum in Seattle. She has also had work featured at the Smithsonian

Museum of the American Indian The National Museum of the American Indian–New York, the George Gustav Heye Center, is a branch of the National Museum of the American Indian at the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House in Manhattan, New York City. The museum is part of the Sm ...

in Washington, D.C. Gray owned and operated art galleries in Santa Fe, New Mexico; Tulsa, Oklahoma; and most recently in Pawhuska, Oklahoma. As well her work being part of numerous private collections and galleries throughout the world, some of her art is owned by the Sultan of Brunei and two royal princes of Jordan—his Royal Highness Prince Tlal bin Mohammed and His Royal Highness Prince Ghazi bin Mohammed.

Activism

One of the things that Gray fought for at Wounded Knee was the deplorable lack of educational opportunities for native children. Throughout her long career, she remained involved in projects that benefited education, like the Council of Energy Resource Tribes education programs, the Trail of Painted Ponies project, and the creation of the Hayes Native American Studies Center. Gray also has participated in projects exposing FBI surveillance of Native American activists and the impact this has on privacy both individually and collectively.

Honors and awards

Gray has won numerous awards for her artwork throughout Indian Country and served a four-year appointment by the Secretary of the Interior as a commissioner on the Indian Arts and Crafts Board in Washington D.C. *1988 – Outstanding Young Women of America *1989 – Featured artist Stables Art Center, Taos, NM * Featured artist Gallup All Indian Inter-Tribal Indian Ceremonial * Featured artist Eight Northern Indian Pueblos Arts & Crafts Show, New Mexico * 1st place, textiles: National American Cultural Arts Festival *1990 – 1st place graphics: Red Earth Fine Arts Competition *1990 – Featured artist: Heard Indian Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ *1991 – Southwest American Indian Art Association (SAIAA) Fellowship winner: 70th Annual Santa Fe Indian Market *1992 – 2nd place ("Clan Seeker"): National Museum of the American Indian/Smithsonian Institutions. *1993 – Featured artist for the Seventh Annual Tulsa Indian Arts Festival

References

External links

Oral History interview with Gina Gray at Oklahoma State University Native Artists Project
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gray, Gina United States federal Indian policy Assimilation of indigenous peoples of North America Aboriginal title in the United States Osage people Plains tribes Native American painters 20th-century American painters Native American history of Oklahoma Painters from Oklahoma 20th-century Native American women 20th-century Native American artists 21st-century Native American women 21st-century Native American artists People from Pawhuska, Oklahoma Native American activists Native American women artists 1954 births 2014 deaths