Acee Blue Eagle

Acee Blue Eagle (1907-1959) was born Alex C. McIntosh but he adopted the “Blue Eagle” surname of his paternal grandfather. He received his first formal art instruction in 1928. In that year he enrolled in special Indian art classes being administered by Oscar Jacobson at the University of Oklahoma. Blue Eagle received a degree from the University in 1932. Several years later he became the founding director of the Art Department at Oklahoma’s Bacone College.

Much of Blue Eagle’s early work is stylistically similar to that of the Kiowa Five. During the early 1930s, he painted numerous murals in Oklahoma, some of which were sponsored by the WPA Public Works of Art Project. His eventual adaptation and refinement of the Kiowa Five painting formula produced what became known as the “Bacone,” or traditional Oklahoma style. Blue Eagle’s personal and professional flamboyance brought him considerable notoriety throughout the United States and Europe. (http://www.nationalcowboymuseum.org/index_beaver.html)