• Tweet

Oil on canvas
Accessioned into the Oklahoma State Art Collection, 2003
Dimensions: 27.25 x 40

The Artwork

Using geometric and abstracted forms, the artist creates a composition which is representational but also rhythmic. With a palette of tan, orange, green, brown, and white, Calvert conjures the cramped and somewhat noisy environment of a bird market.

The Artist

George Emmett Calvert was born in Elk City, Oklahoma. He was raised in the Herring community southwest of Hammon, Oklahoma, and graduated from Hammon High School. Calvert received a bachelor's degree from Southwestern State Teachers College in Weatherford, Oklahoma, before earning his Master of Fine Arts from the University of Oklahoma. He became a Professor at Northeastern State University in Tahlequah where he taught watercolor and oil painting, etching, sculpture, and pottery.

He also taught at Southwestern University, and after retiring, he returned to teaching at Southwestern University and retired a second time. Calvert enjoyed painting, traveling, and observing landscapes and people of Oklahoma. He often painted in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, and once owned the Blue Dolphin Art Gallery in Aransas Pass, Texas. Governor Dewey L. Bartlett appointed George Calvert Oklahoma's first Ambassador of the Arts. Calvert's legacy is the vast number of artists that he mentored and who are now mentoring other artists. He brought to Oklahomans many opportunities to view and appreciate fine art and was a member of the Southwest Art Guild in Elk City.