Earnest Spybuck (January 1883 – 1949) was an Absentee Shawnee Native American artist, who was born on the land allotted the Shawnee Indians in Indian Territory and what was to later become Pottawatomie County, Oklahoma, near the town of Tecumseh. M. R. Harrington, an archaeologist/anthropologist, was touring the area documenting Native Americans, their history, culture and living habits. Interested in the religious ceremonies of the Shawnee which included the use of peyote, Harrington had ventured to the Shawnee Tribal lands. There he learned of Earnest Spybuck's artistic work and encouraged Spybuck in his endeavors. While Spybuck's work was obviously art, Harrington saw that he was illustrating detailed scenes of ceremonies, games, and social gatherings which could be used to illustrate many anthropological publications. Spybuck's work was received positively by both Native American and non-native artistic communities. Many of his works are now held by the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian.
Early life
Ernest Spybuck was born on his Shawnee Tribal Allotment near what was later to become Tecumseh, Oklahoma, to the White Turkey Band of the Absentee Shawnee, of the Rabbit clan. His parents were Peahchepeahso and John Spybuck. His Indian name was Mathkacea or Mahthela. He preferred the spelling of his first name as "Earnest."
By the time he was born the Absentee band of Shawnee, like many tribes originally residing east of the Mississippi River, had been forcibly removed to Indian Territory by the U. S. government. Many different tribal peoples were settled in close proximity to each other so Spybuck grew up with the neighboring Sauk and Fox, Kickapoo, and Citizen Pottawatomie people.
Spybuck attended school at the Shawnee Boarding School near his home and at Sacred Heart Mission in south-central Pottawatomie County. According to his teacher, when he was eight years old, Spybuck would do nothing but draw and paint pictures with subjects drawn from his life. His education never went beyond the McGuffey's Third Reader.
At the age of 19, Spybuck married his wife Anna Scott, and the couple had four children, Thomas, Flindie, Hewitt and Virgie Louise. The family lived the entire time on Spybuck's allotment in the Brinton Township, west of Tecumseh, Oklahoma, near the Little Axe community among other Shawnee Tribal members.
Recognition by M. R. Harrington
In about 1910 when Spybuck was nearly 30, his art work became a known outside the tribe when anthropologist Mark Raymond Harrington was told of his paintings. Harrington was traveling among the Indians collecting specimens and researching the tribes of the area for the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation. His assistant brought in Spybuck and some of his work and he was able to examine the man's "unsophisticated" drawings. He appreciated the detailed accuracy of the equipment and dress Spybuck depicted and encouraged him to create watercolors of ceremonies and social life of the tribes in the vicinity.
Spybuck produced watercolors for Harrington through 1921, and Harrington used some in a couple of monographs published by the Heye Foundation. Harrington also interviewed Spybuck for a work on the Shawnee tribe which was never published, but he deposited his notes and Spybuck's paintings with the Museum of the American Indian, which is now the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian.
One reviewer discounts Harrington's patronage, claiming that Spybuck was already known for depicting daily life among the local tribes when the two met. His art matured along with his involvement in the local community, which included participating in activities and ceremonies that interested ethnographers.
Artistic style
Reportedly Spybuck told Harrington that he preferred painting cowboys, livestock and range scenes, and some say through Harrington's patronage, Spybuck's style evolved in his choice of subjects and the way he painted them. His style was representational, featuring local scenes of ceremonies, games, social gatherings and the home life he was familiar with and often participated in. His style could be called Plains Flatstyle Representative Art, in which individuals could be identified by the meticulous details of dress and accoutrement, set in a simplified three-dimensional setting with well-defined foreground and background.
However, he took the representational depiction of the figures and settings in a new direction that was uniquely his own. He developed his own unique techniques, such as painting a cross-section "window" in lodge where a ceremony would take place to show the activity inside, while also showing the landscape and time of day outside.