Woody Crumbo, a Potowatomi Indian, was born on his mother's reservatin allotment near Lexington, Oklahoma. He was orphaned as a young child when his education was stopped for ten years when he was in the third grade. Crumbo attended the American Indian Institute in Wichita, Kansas, a Presbyterian school fo young Indians with exceptional skills. He graduatd three years later, valedictorian of his class. He then attended Wichita University from 1933 to 1936 and studied mural technique with Olaf Nordmark, watercolor with Clayton Henri Staples, and painting and drawing with Oscar Brousse Jacobson. During there years, Crumbo earned his living as an Indian dancer, and his reputation for excellence was recognized by the government sponsored program that brought him more fame.

Crumbo's skill as an artist was acknowledged by Susie Peters in 1932 when she sold 22 of his paintings to the San Francisco Museum of Art, where they remain as part of the permanent collection.

In 1945 he was employed by the Thomas Gilcrease Institute in Tulsa to assemble an American Indian art collection. Most of the Indian Art collection presently there was selected by Crumbo. Mr. Gilcrease purchased many of Crumbo's paintings which remain in the permanent collection.

In 1960, Woody Crumbo was named Assistant Director of the El Paso, Texas, Museum of Art and in 1968 appointed Director, a position he held until 1974. At this time he and his wife moved to Okmulgee, Oklahoma where he continued his art and humanitarian activities until his death in 1989.

Woody Crumbo's paintings are in numerous museums including the University of Oklahoma; The Minneapolis Institute of Arts; Museum of Northern Arizona; The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City; Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.

"Half my life passed in striving to complete the pictorial record of Indian history, religion, rituals, customs, way of life, and philosophies . . . a graphic record that a million words could not begin to tell."