Oglala Artist Speaks at Brinton Museum

In honor of Indigenous People’s Day, on October 10, The Brinton Museum welcomed acclaimed Oglala artist Dwayne “Chuck” Wilcox as part of a new Artist-in-Residence program connecting artists with the museum, its collections, and the community.

Known for his distinctive drawings on ledger paper, Wilcox brings humor, parody, and a contemporary perspective to an artistic tradition with deep roots in Plains history.

He talked about his editorial artwork, and said this work can be seen on his website, dwaynewilcox.com

Wilcox talked about his work on and with ledger paper.

He said he often he demonstrated his art techniques to school children.

There was a display of his 3-D art work that was created with ledger paper stripes and even comic book pages. He created decorative hats, a horse face mask with real buffalo horns, and a cradle board, all made out of the strips of ledger paper.

His work explores Native American resilience and contemporary life while engaging with the histories and visual traditions of the Northern Plains.

Wilcox said at one time he applied to the American Institute of Native American Art in Santa Fe, and he was accepted. But his neighbor told him that most of the students were Navajo, they didn’t like Lakotas, and they would beat him up. He took a job for a while, then he joined the military.

“I went to boarding school, the military couldn’t be worse than that. It wasn’t. It was a piece of cake. It was boring as all get-out,” he said.

While there, he said he finished painting a large 20-foot mural of the space shuttle launch, that another artist had started. Later the building with the mural was torn down. Some years later he painted another one, but that building burned down, so he quit painting murals.

He said that with art, sometimes it’s good a living and sometimes its not. You don’t have a paycheck every two weeks.

He pointed to the artwork on display at the Brinton and said,

Wilcox is attending the new residency program at the Brinton. Following his residency, Wilcox will return to The Brinton Museum as a participating artist in Bighorn Rendezvous XII in 2027.

Over the course of his career, Wilcox has received numerous honors, including the Oscar Howe Award in 2006, a Joan Mitchell Foundation Award in 2017, and the South Dakota Governor’s Award in 2019. His work is held in museum collections across the United States, including the Charles M. Russell Museum, Harwood Museum of Art at the University of New Mexico, Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College, National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, and Smithsonian Institution.