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University of Oklahoma students will discuss works from James T. Bialac collection in Norman

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NORMAN — Students from the University of Oklahoma School of Art and Art History will present a program about the significance of selected works from the James T. Bialac Native American Art Collection at 4 p.m. Thursday at the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, 555 Elm.

“Being a university-based museum, it is important for the public to hear from current OU students,” said Jessica Farling, coordinator of academic programs at the museum “The ‘Students' Choice' event is a great way for the museum to collaborate with the School of Art and Art History.”

Presenters include doctoral students Tammy Hanawalt, Hadley Jerman and Melissa Nuzum, along with master's degree students Caroline Fernald and Benny Tahmahkera, the latter a Native American Studies scholar. The presentations will be in the museum's Sandy Bell Gallery.

Hanawalt will discuss Narciso Abeyta's 1959 painting “Werewolf,” which illustrates an intense and macabre scene based on Navajo mythology and depicts a shift from traditionalism in American Indian art to “embrace practices of modernism.”

Jerman's focus will be “Sioux-Soldier-Sold,” a black-and-white ink drawing by Oklahoma Kiowa-Caddo artist Tommy Wayne (T.C.) Cannon. The work came from one of the artist's sketchbooks and “forms an arresting political statement and snapshot of its time.”

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