Bush Foundation Fellowships

Frank Big Bear

2008 Enduring Vision Award
Minnesota

Career Field: Visual Arts

Painter Frank Big Bear (Minneapolis, Minnesota) was born in Detroit Lakes and spent his early years on the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota. Though largely self-taught, he began his art in earnest while a student at North High School in Minneapolis and later studied with George Morrison at the University of Minnesota. His colorful, intricate, Prismacolor pencil works provide a personal account of both the recent history and present-day experience of American Indians. Big Bear’s works have been seen at the Bockley Gallery in Minneapolis, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Heard Museum in Phoenix, and Institute of American Indian Arts Museum in Santa Fe. His drawings are in the collections of the Walker Art Center, the British Museum in London and the Frederick R. Weisman Museum, among others. In September 2008 the Tweed Museum in Duluth will show a retrospective of Big Bear’s work. Big Bear was a Bush Artist Fellow in 1998.

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