A temporary art exhibit at Haskell, boasting saturated hues and energetic patterns, depicts a modern Indigenous experience through the pen and brush of a career artist.
The Haskell Cultural Center and Museum’s current exhibition boasts a collection of work by Benjamin Harjo Jr., Absentee Shawnee and Seminole Nation of Oklahoma. The show, “Chromatic Vibrance,” first opened in June.
The pieces came into the museum’s collection recently, and Director Travis Campbell, Cherokee, Choctaw and Delaware, felt compelled to promptly display them for the public. After all, Harjo died in 2023 and only had three solo exhibitions prior to “Chromatic Vibrance,” despite his prolificness.
“During his career, most of his paintings were sold pretty quickly after they were created because he was doing this as a full-time job,” Campbell said. “He would create something and it would be sold to pay the bills. So there weren’t a lot of institutions that were able to accumulate a large collection of his work.”
“Chromatic Vibrance” was made possible by a Kansas couple who reached out to Haskell as part of their estate planning. Jonnie Ulrey and Michael Cromwell of Ottawa were friends with Harjo and purchased his art throughout his career, according to Campbell. Now, they’re gradually donating their portion of Harjo’s oeuvre to the museum’s permanent collection. The current show displays the first round of donations.
“He worked clear up to the end, and this collection represents at least three decades of his work,” Campbell said. “So it’s phenomenal — just these little 14, 15 pieces — that we can see such a sampling of such a wide body of work.”
Despite Harjo’s robust career, there is a marked lack of writing on or commentary from the artist regarding his work. Yet, when Campbell examined one of the contributed works, he unearthed a handwritten note from Harjo on the back.
“I was desperate to find some kind of quote from him because I wanted to include something in the artist’s own words,” Campbell said.
Thanks to his discovery, he could copy the artist’s notation verbatim onto one of the exhibition plaques.
Even a hurried passerby would be hard-pressed to overlook Harjo’s sinuous forms imbued with movement and his use of astonishing color, which inspired the name “Chromatic Vibrance.” Across the exhibit’s breadth of style and medium — including gouache, ink and lithograph — Harjo’s thematic considerations readily emerge.
“You can see his cultural identity is represented in so many of the pieces here,” Campbell said, pointing to a depiction of a Native woman in traditional dress and a lithograph entitled “Stomp Dance.”
Harjo was also known for combining artistry and social commentary, which may not be readily evident in the museum’s currently limited collection.
However, a lithograph entitled “But, you must pay the rent” was particularly beloved on the exhibition’s opening night.
“You can see the woman and the baby with the villainous landlord here,” Campbell said while examining the work. Although the piece is undated, he tentatively placed it around the 1990s. “It feels very, very contemporary, you know, because it’s something we all struggle with today.”
While Native culture and identities are often treated as relics of a forgotten past across major collecting institutions, the modernity of Harjo’s work is like a live, beating heart on display.
“We had the Rinehart portraits up here on exhibit a couple years ago, and that’s what so many of our visitors think of when they think of Native American identity in the modern day,” Campbell said. “They’re still lumping us back with the 1890s and we’re not in the 19th century anymore, obviously — none of us. So it’s nice to have modern pieces from a contemporary person.”
Haskell is also a natural home for Harjo’s work as he attended the institution’s sister school, Chilocco Indian Agricultural School, which shuttered in 1980.
“He was very much a product of the boarding school system, although considerably later than most of the subject matter that we focus on here (at the Haskell Cultural Center and Museum),” Campbell said. “He is a product of the … later aspect of the boarding school era. So, I feel like that’s something that we don’t see a whole lot, you know, is exhibits from artists who are products of the boarding school era like this. And hopefully that’s something that we’ll see more of in the future.”
Get involved with the museum
“Chromatic Vibrance” will be on display at the Haskell Cultural Center and Museum through Oct. 31. The facility is open to the public from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday, excluding holidays.
More of Harjo’s work is on the way to the museum as additional pieces are transferred from the private owners. Campbell said there’s a possibility for a follow-up exhibition, depending on the size of the remaining collection.
The museum accepts donations here, which make exhibits like “Chromatic Vibrance” feasible and support the team’s goal of expanding the facility in the coming years. Those interested in contributing art or other relevant objects can reach out via email at museum@haskell.edu.
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Wulfe Wulfemeyer (they/them), reporter and news editor, has worked with The Lawrence Times since May 2025. They can be reached at wulfe@lawrencekstimes.com.
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