American Indian artist Brummett Echohawk said his paintings portrayed spirit as much as they did photographic images. Tulsa World archive

A  Pawnee Indian who began drawing pencil sketches of other soldiers to calm his nerves during lulls in World War II battles in Italy became one of Oklahoma's best-known artists after the war. It was while his unit was fighting in Sicily that Brummett Echohawk, who left high school in Pawnee in 1940 to join Oklahoma's 45th Infantry Division, decided to become an artist. Echohawk recalled years later that he found a large drawing board, some paper and other art supplies when he entered a house that had been shelled by the Allies. He kept the supplies and started drawing what he saw. "After that, I drew and wrote every day," Echohawk said. He protected the drawings in a cellophane bag but didn't intend them for anything more than his personal pleasure. That changed when he was recuperating from his second injury and a war correspondent discovered him -- and his sketches -- in an Army hospital. Newspaper Enterprise Association immediately bought several of the drawings and distributed them to its client newspapers throughout the United States. Echohawk's career as an artist was launched. Many of his sketches also were used in The Yank, the official Army newspaper. Noting that constant fighting left little time for drawing, Echohawk said "I was the fastest pen in the West." He frequently made two sketches of other soldiers, giving one to his model and keeping the other for himself. He once drew sketches of 35 German soldiers his unit had captured. Echohawk wrote several articles that were published in the Tulsa World about the exploits of the all-Indian Army company from Pawnee. He once recalled that when that unit would capture a town or village, the soldiers would pull down the enemy flag and run up a wine bottle inscribed: "This village taken by Oklahoma Indians." Echohawk was awarded three Bronze Stars and three Purple Hearts for action with the 45th Thunderbird Division in Italy and North Africa. After the war, Echohawk studied fine arts at schools in Detroit and Chicago and was a freelance artist for a year in New York. He also worked as a commercial artist in Dallas before coming to Tulsa in 1952 as an artist for an oil company. A year later, he decided to devote his full time to being a freelance commercial artist. Echohawk, who died in 2006 at the age of 83, also wrote several articles for the World about American Indians, and for a few years drew a weekly comic strip called "Little Chief" that was published in the World's Sunday magazine. He was widely known for his paintings of American Indians. His landscape oil paintings were rendered in an impressionistic style with a palette knife -- and a Bowie knife. Echohawk's paintings have hung in art museums around the world, including Tulsa's Gilcrease and Philbrook museums, and he was a former board member of the Gilcrease Museum. One of his most significant achievements was assisting Thomas Hart Benton with the mural "Independence and the Opening of the West" for the Truman Memorial Library in Independence, Mo. He was invited by President Truman to attend the opening of the library. Echohawk also was an actor, having performed in plays, television productions and movies. "A painting should move you," Echohawk once said. "That's why I do impressionistic landscapes -- I am painting the spirit of a picture, not a picture of a picture. "But all some people want is something pretty. Well, if someone wants a pretty picture, they can buy a calendar." Echohawk said his life had public meaning and impact because he was devoted to communicating facts, to authenticity and research. "I paint the truth. And when I write, I do the same thing," he said.


Echohawk studied art at the Detroit School of Art and Crafts in 1945 and at the Art Institute of Chicago, 1945-48. He studied Creative Writing at the University of Tulsa. He has had his paintings shown in Pakistan and India, through the Art in the Embassy Program, State Department. As an actor Echohawk has appeared in the role of Sitting Bull in Kopit's play Indians in Tulsa, Fort Worth. He was an authority of the Custer Battle at Little Big Horn.  "He was a regular on the Big Bill and Oom-A-Gog show making kids' doodles into recognizable pictures. I believe he helped start the American Indian Theater Company and has acted in films, such as "Oklahoma Passage" where he played a Cherokee leader." by Rodney Echohawk, nephew.

Painting of Original Pistol Pete Heads for New Home at OSU

By Nick Foltz
3/21/1989

Tulsa artist Brummett Echohawk is donating to Oklahoma State University a painting of Pistol Pete, the gun-totin' school mascot, it was announced Monday. The painting, valued at $50,000, is to be presented March 27, according to Steve Hill of the OSU Foundation. Echohawk is to make a guest lecture about art on the Stillwater campus the same day. The Tulsa artist is a full-blood Pawnee who once said he is not an Indian artist, but rather a fine arts painter who is an Indian. "There's a difference."  Echohawk was not available for comment Monday. The Pistol Pete painting has been on display at the Indian Territory Gallery & Frames in Sapulpa for some time and Echohawk had turned down several offers for it, said gallery owner Shirley Wells.

 "I think Echohawk wanted OSU to have the painting because it is part of Oklahoma's history and he didn't want it to leave the state," said Wells, who noted the last offer came from a St. Louis, Mo., man. Pistol Pete, whose real name was Frank Eaton, posed for the painting shortly before his death in 1958.  He was 97.  Eaton earned his reputation as a gunslinger as a deputy U.S. marshal, working for the "Hanging Judge" Isaac Parker in Fort Smith, Ark. Eaton put 11 notches on his pistol.  After retiring, he became an officer in Perkins, about 10 miles south of Stillwater, and was a popular speaker at OSU and other campuses.  He always wore his loaded pistol in stage appearances. As a boy of 8, Eaton watched helplessly as his father was gunned down and he swore to avenge the death.  At age 15, he was given a Colt revolver and through practice became a fast-draw artist . He tracked down each of the six men responsible for his father's death. In his last shootout, Eaton was wounded in an arm and leg.  OSU, then known as Oklahoma A & M College, adopted Pistol Pete as the school mascot about 65 years ago.  A large papier mache head bearing a likeness of Eaton's face is worn by a student who prances around OSU ballgames. The real gunslinger had a long, shaggy moustache and wore his lengthy hair in braids.  He favored an oversized cowboy hat with a broad brim. The scrappy gunfighter is still regarded as a fitting image for OSU's Cowboy sports teams. Echohawk's paintings have been displayed in Tulsa's Gilcrease Museum and at museums and art shows across the U.S. and in several foreign countries. He has been a staff artist for the Chicago Daily Times and Chicago Sun Times, as well s artist for Bluebook and McCall's magazines.