Murv Jacob (January 27, 1945 - February 26, 2019) was an American artist and illustrator. He is known for his paintings illustrating the culture of the Cherokee tribe and the landscape of the southeastern United States.

Early life

Jacob was born in

Glendale, Ohio Glendale is a village (United States)#Ohio, village in Hamilton County, Ohio, Hamilton County, Ohio, United States. The population was 2,155 at the 2010 United States census, 2010 census. It is a northern suburb of Cincinnati, and is the site of th ...

. Raised in eastern Kansas, he attended San Bernardino Valley College in California.

Career

From 1965 to 1967 Jacob lived in San Francisco, where he made posters for artists such as

Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...

and the

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. He returned to Kansas in 1971, and in 1984 moved to Tahlequah, Oklahoma, a center for the culture of the Cherokee Nation. Jacob created oil and acrylic paintings portraying the old and modern Cherokee dances, and the villages, animals, landscapes and perhaps best known for his illustrations of the old Cherokee animal stories especially those about Ji-sdu the rabbit and Yona the bear. In 2011, Jacob co-wrote and illustrated the book ''Secret History of the Cherokees'' In 2015, Jacob was in the news when a neighbors insisted that he remove a graffiti-like painting which he had commissioned on the side wall of his studio fifteen years before. Jacob died on February 26, 2019.

Awards

Jacob won more than 50 awards, and has twice been voted Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers' Illustrator of the Year. In 2012, he won the Wordcraft Circle Award for ''Secret History of the Cherokees''. Jacob and his partner Debbie Duvall, who have collaborated on a dozen books, received the “Oklahoma Book Award” in 2005 for their seven book series “The Grandmother Stories”."Book Review: Secret History of the Cherokees"
''Native American Times''.

Selected illustration credits

* Rabbit and the Well * Rabbit and the Fingerbone Necklace * Rabbit Goes to Kansas * Rabbit Plants the Forest * Rabbit and the Wolves * Rabbit Goes Duck Hunting * Rabbit and the Bears * The Opossum's Tale * ''How Rabbit Tricked Otter and Other Cherokee Trickster Stories'' * How Rabbit Lost his Tail * How Medicine Came to the People: a Tale of the Ancient Cherokees * The Great Ball Game of the Birds and Animals, winner of the 2003 Oklahoma book awards * Four Ancestors: Stories, Songs, and Poems from Native North AmericaChildren's Book Review: Four Ancestors: Stories, Songs, and Poems from Native North America by Joseph Bruchac, Author, Duke Sine, Illustrator, Murv Jacob, Illustrator Bridgewa...
/ref> * Tecumseh: Leader * How Turtle‘s Back Was Cracked * Boy Who Lived with the Bears and Other Iroquois Stories * Rabbit and the Bears * Dog People: Native Dog Stories * Turtle Meat and Other Stories * Circle of Thanks * Flying with the Eagle, Racing the Great Bear * ''The Legend of the Windigo'' * The Dark Island * The Long Way Home * The Dark Way * Mountain Windsong * Cherokee Dragon * The Way of the Priests * War Woman * The Peace Chief * The War Trail North * The Way South * Ezekiel's Wheels * The Education of Little Tree * Pushing the Bear * Designs of the Night Sky * Mankiller: A Chief and her people * Tribes of the Southern Woodlands

Notes

References

Oklahoma Center for Poets & Writers * Talking Animals: An Interview with Murv Jacob, by Sean Teuton in ''American Indian Culture and Research Journal'', Vol. 26, No. 2 2002.

External links

Murv Jacob websiteOral History Interview with Murv Jacob
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jacob, Murv 1945 births 2019 deaths American illustrators People from Glendale, Ohio