Description:
Watercolor on paper. Signed l.r.: Cecil Dick, Stamped u.r.: PLANCHE 8.
From: American Indian Painters, Vol. 1, p. 13: Dear Mr. Jacobson: I have been an orphan since I was twelve years old, so I was not reared anywhere. I also just grew. I am anxious to do a large mural depicting the removal of my people to Oklahoma. I would like to have an opportunity to give a truthful portrayal of the "Trail of Tears"... About the painting you purchased at Bacone. It is a painting of a Cherokee man. The Cherokees were famous pipe makers. The reason for the sculptured pipe is that he is a doctor. The plants near him are tobacco plants. Tobacco is given special powers by the Cherokees. By being one place and blowing a prepared smoke in the direction of some disease, this disease is driven away... Sincerely, Cecil Dick In spite of his unprivileged childhood and privations, through native ability, character, and hard work, Cecil found the opportunity to paint many murals. He was one of three artists who designed exhibits for the John Wanamaker Store at the International Sports Show in New York in 1936. His smaller watercolors have been widely exhibited. He won a prize at the All-Indian exhibit at Philbrook Art Museum at Tulsa in 1946. Many of his paintings have found their way into private collections. He executed a panel for the Sequoyah Weavers for their exhibition in New York in 1946. His favorite subjects are Indian life and animals. In simplicity and honesty, he pictures a common people and their way of living, and he does it in a most sympathetic manner. Cecil is a very modest and diffident young man who "hopes that he may be permitted to contribute to Indian culture." He is a Cherokee of pure blood, born in 1915, and was brought up in an Indian orphanage and a public high school. He attended Bacone College for a short time and later studies art under the great teacher, Dorothy Dunn at the Indian School in Santa Fe. In 1939 Cecil received an appointment as art teacher at Chilocco Indian School where he remained until 1942. He resigned to enter war work in an aircraft plant. His job was to illustrate manufacturing processes to help speed production. He is a member of the Wolf Clan of his tribe and used to participate in the Annual Stamp Dance. He is able to read the Cherokee language invented by the remarkable Sequoyah about a hundred years ago. (Collection of Oscar Brousse Jacobson).