Benjamin Harjo Jr. and the Paradox of Success

Benjamin Harjo Jr’s success came at a cost to his legacy.

What he made, people bought. All of it. All the time. Throughout a 50-plus year career.

Art was more than a passion for him, it was a profession. How he fed his family.

He faithfully attended Santa Fe Indian Market and Red Earth festival in Oklahoma City along with other select shows, cultivating a collector base that scarfed up his work. He paid his mortgage selling artworks, that was the point.

Being so successful, he didn’t have to promote himself. He didn’t need a gallery to promote his work, to sell his work, to place his work in museums, use its contacts to get him in shows, generate media attention, then take their cut of the sales.

Whatever he produced, people bought, and often did so in volume, no middleman required.

Unfortunately, that independence and reliance on private collectors has left Harjo Jr. (Absentee Shawnee/Seminole, 1945–2023) tragically underappreciated and underrecognized, even among other Native painters of his generation. T.C. Cannon, Earl Biss, Doug Hyde, John Nieto, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Kevin Red Star – contemporaries – all have substantially more “institutional” representation – museums. That’s where legacies are made.

Harjo made a living selling his artwork for collectors to place in their homes, but as soon as they did, those artworks became private, unseen, unknown. Sadly, as a result, the brilliant artist has faced something of the same fate.

Benjamin Harjo Jr. during the reception for OSU Museum of Art’s 2018 exhibition “Benjamin Harjo Jr. We are a Landscape of all We Know.” Photo by Phil Shockley. Copyright © 2018 Oklahoma State University.

Harjo’s alma mater, Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, hopes to raise his profile, starting with an exhibition, “benjamin harjo JR.: from here to there,” on view through September 7, 2024. Seventy-eight pieces in the presentation out of roughly 90 come from just nine private lenders. What that means is these artworks haven’t been widely seen by the public before and may never be again.

“When we put on shows, we can usually borrow from institutions; well, (Harjo’s) work is in a few institutions, but not enough for us to draw from, so we had to go to private collectors,” Vicky Berry, exhibition curator and director emerita at the Oklahoma State University Museum of Art, explained. “He could do what he wanted, and the public bought his work. One of our collectors (who’s) a donor to the museum, she has 41 pieces from Ben Harjo.”

Harjo did more than sell artwork to his patrons, he became personally connected to them. By all accounts, he was a nice guy, but it was also a savvy business strategy.

“When our staff from the museum went out to collect the art from these lenders, they would tell stories about how when their daughter was young, he helped her draw, and then he would come back and check in with her 10 years later,” Berry said.

The OSU Museum of Art has teamed up with the First Americans Museum in Oklahoma City to further amplify Harjo’s career by producing a nearly 300-page monograph due out this fall. Again, the project leans heavily on private collectors – about 20 – for the 100 or so illustrations that will be published along with essays and poems, including one by Oklahoma native and former U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo (Muscogee (Creek)) – no relation to Benjamin Harjo. Joy Harjo’s poem gives the exhibition its title.

Installation of “benjamin harjo JR. from here to there.” Photo by Gary Lawson. Copyright © 2024Oklahoma State University.

Benjamin Harjo Jr. at Oklahoma State

Harjo was born in Clovis, New Mexico, and his family moved to Oklahoma shortly after his birth in 1945. He quickly discovered a lifelong artistic passion in comic strips and animation. He was one of those kids who was always drawing from as far back as anyone can remember him being able to hold a pencil or crayon.

Harjo discovered his love for printmaking at the Institute of American Indian Art in Santa Fe. He showed up there in fall of 1964, two years after its opening, part of the “Miracle Generation” of early IAIA students who would revolutionize contemporary Native fine art – Cannon, Biss, Hyde, Red Starr, Linda Lomahaftewa. And Harjo Jr.

He returned to Oklahoma and enrolled at OSU before being drafted into the U.S. Army in 1969. After serving, he went back to OSU, earning his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1974, then embarking on his career as an artist.

Aside from its location near home, Berry figures Harjo was drawn to OSU by its faculty at the time. Marty Avert (b. 1942; Coushatta, Choctaw, Cherokee) and Dean Bloodgood (b. 1934); Doel Reed’s (1894 –1985) reputation as a master of aquatint remained strong at the school.

Working primarily with gouache, pen and ink, and a variety of printmaking methods, Harjo also ventured into sculpture, jewelry, and other three-dimensional forms. He relied on color and line to create art that spoke to the continuum of his cultures and creativity at large.

“Once you start looking, the black and white work is very edgy, and the color (pieces) have substance too, but the initial (impression), it's just happy and pretty colors and patterns and it's joyful, but then you can start unpeeling it,” Berry said. “The layers, I've had the experience of seeing so many of his pieces now, the whole arc of his work, there's so much there that he was doing. They're colorful, they're lively, they're intriguing, that's really what compelled me to want to look at them more.”

Benjamin Harjo Jr. ‘he woman within,’ 2009, pen and ink on paper, 4 x 9 inches. OSU Museum of Art, Anonymous Gift, 2012.009.005. Photo by Phil Shockley.

Harjo’s Seminole ancestry played an important role in the vibrant colors and intricate designs of his artwork. He was raised by Seminole grandparents. Customary Seminole clothing offers a window into Harjo’s creative inspirations.

Berry first met Harjo in 2013 when she joined the team creating the university’s art museum. Harjo and his wife Barbara were both on the advisory board. Harjo stayed involved at OSU. Two smaller exhibitions of his work were held in the 2010’s. He’d show up for artist talks and workshops, meetings, to see old friends. He’s in the school’s Hall of Fame.

“He was always very generous, generous to his community, but generous to people, talking to them just off the street about art and asking them questions and making them feel comfortable. He was very, very approachable,” Berry remembers. “He was full of joy, and not artificially. He didn't ever seem to be down, always real positive. I think you can see that in his work, but do understand that he's very deep, and there are many layers I have found in his art about serious issues.”

When OSU Museum of Art officials heard Harjo had cancer and was not doing well in 2022, they started down the path of putting this exhibition together, hoping he’d live to see it. Sadly, that was not the case.

Harjo, like all great artists, however, lives on through his artwork and the lives it touched. More and more every day thanks to efforts like OSU’s.