Intermediate art students tour Tulsa museums

John McGee

Special to The TIMES

Pea Ridge Intermediate School art students made the annual trek to Tulsa's Philbrook and Gilcrease Art museums last week with 26 students on hand for the excursion.

The 14th annual trip was a full day, with the group led by art teacher John McGee leaving Pea Ridge before the start of school and arriving back home late in the evening. The trip to Tulsa was slowed considerably by the tragic automobile accident on Arkansas Highway 72 which tied up traffic for a time on Friday morning.

Though arriving a bit late, the group got a thorough tour of the Philbrook Museum, started by the Phillips family of Phillips 66 fame at their residence in the Brookside neighborhood in central Tulsa. The museum, ranked among the top 200 art museums of the more than 17,000 art museums in the United States today, features art dating back 5,000 years to ancient Egypt with pieces by noted artists from art periods in the intervening years to the present day.

An afternoon tour was conducted at the Gilcrease Museum, an institution begun by Thomas Gilcrease in the 1940s. Gilcrease was a wealthy Creek Indian who owned land in the center of the Glenpool oil strike in Oklaoma that made him a millionaire before he was 20 years old. He used his wealth to accumulate art by American artists, amassing the largest collection of American art until Bentonville's Crystal Bridges surpassed their top ranking a few years ago. Gilcrease donated his entire collection to the city of Tulsa which in turn allows the University of Tulsa the opportunity to oversee maintaining the facility.

In addition to the museum tours, the students enjoyed a picnic at Tulsa's famed Riverside Park on the banks of the Arkansas River with an evening at the Incredible Pizza entertainment and food establishment in south Tulsa.

Students making the trip included Hannah See, Alayah White, Emma Fryar, Ava Clark, Evan Escajeda, Jacklyn White, Jasmine Navarre, Ying Hu, Austin Bratti, Bryar Lipscomb, Emory Bowlin, Katie Webb, Lynden Osborn, Preston Wheeless, Cole Ingram, Arianna Key, Taylor Jamison, Jeselyn Medina, Elizabeth Woodruff, Isaiah Bott, Kasey Goldberg, Savannah Keene, Jade Main, Kennedy Williams, Caley Hightower and Sahara Robbins.

Besides McGee, chaperones making the trip included Mitzie Taylor, Brenda Gabbert, Elizabeth Thomason, Darrin White, Lela White and Jeremy Bott.

Community on 05/16/2018