‘Persistence and grit’
At 90, renowned Oklahoma artist Bert Seabourn still painting.
Bert Seabourn is surrounded. The renowned Oklahoma City painter’s home studio is practically bursting with colorful canvases, with expressive faces peering around him from many of them: a droopy-eared hound wears the proverbial hangdog look, a ready cellist coolly regards her audience, a sharpeyed falcon watches over a Native American elder.
At 90, the internationally known artist never worries about what he will paint next. He just paints.
“I paint every day, since probably when I left OG&E (in 1978). I used to paint a painting every day, and I did that for several years. And then I slowed down and started painting larger ones, maybe (with) a little more detail,” Seabourn said.
“I’ll even sit up in bed, thinking about subject matter.”
The influential painter, printmaker and sculptor is being honored for his contributions to the state’s cultural landscape with the inaugural Focus Award from Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center, in conjunction with its biennal exhibition “ArtNow 2021.”
“I think that Bert can serve as an inspiration for all of us of the power of persistence and grit,” said Oklahoma Contemporary Artistic Director Jeremiah Matthew Davis.
“Even someone who has achieved as much as he has in the art scene in Oklahoma — and who is definitely due retirement should he choose — he still makes the choice day in, day out, to pick up the paintbrush, go to his studio and get to work. I find that commitment inspiring.”
Hitchhiking for inspiration
Born in Redbarn, Texas, Seabourn began making art at a young age and found inspiration at a local park.
“There was a young man who was always out there painting ... and he’d go over there and watch him,” said Connie Seabourn, one of Seabourn’s three daughters and a fellow artist. “My dad was really impressed with that guy.”
Although Seabourn grew up poor, seeing that artist making and selling paintings opened him up to the possibility of pursuing art as his vocation.
“Whenever he was about 12 or so is when he moved to Purcell, and whenever he was a young man ... he used to hitchhike out to different art shows,” Connie Seabourn said.
“He would go up to Oklahoma City and to Tulsa and to Dallas, sometimes hitchhiking, but he and this friend, they would also just jump on trains to go wherever they were going.”
Seabourn worked as a Navy journalist and artist from 1951-55 during the Korean War and then as an illustrator and commercial artist for 23 years with Oklahoma Gas & Electric Co. For six years, he went to night school at Oklahoma City University, where he majored in art.
“During that time, I started painting at night and entering shows that way. The style and subject matter all have (been) pretty much the same: People, animals, birds. I don’t do still lifes or landscapes or anything like that,” he said. “I do cats and dogs, buffaloes, Native Americans. ... For three years, I did nothing but abstracts, but then I branched out from that.”
Taking art around the world
In 1978, Seabourn left OG&E to become a fulltime artist, and he has exhibited throughout the United States, Europe, Asia and South America.
“When I was younger, I had shows in England, Ger
Works by renowned Oklahoma artist Bert Seabourn are exhibited through Sept. 13 at Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center as part of the exhibit “ArtNow 2021.” In conjunction with “ArtNow,” Oklahoma Contemporary selected Seabourn as the recipient of its inaugural Focus Award for his contributions to the state’s cultural landscape. many, Russia, Taiwan. ... We had annual shows in New York, California, New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado ... and Bonnie’s always been with me,” he said, referring to his high school sweetheart and wife of 71 years.
Seabourn has paintings in the permanent collections of the Vatican in Rome; China’s National Palace Museum in Taiwan; Moscow University in Russia; the American Embassy in London; and the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. His work is in the President Gerald R. Ford Library Collection and the George and Barbara Bush Collection.
“We were on the road a lot. I sometimes wondered how he painted as much as he did because we were on the road. But it was fun,” Bonnie Seabourn said. “We met so many people. We’ve met presidents and movie stars. It’s been a fun, exciting life.”
Showing his signature style
The walls, shelves and tables of the couple’s Warr Acres home are lined with an array of paintings, prints and sculptures to rival most galleries.
“We used to, if we had a good show, we’d buy paintings somewhere in that area,” he recalled.
He continues to show and sell his paintings at 50 Penn Place Art Gallery, JRB Art at the Elms and North Gallery and Studio. Locally, his work is part of the Oklahoma State Art Collection, National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, Oklahoma City Museum of Art, Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art and Oklahoma Attorney General office grounds. Seabourn exhibited at the downtown OKC Festival of the Arts for more than four decades.
In 1976, Seabourn was designated a Master Artist by the Five Civilized Tribes Museum. In 1981, Gov. George Nigh presented him with the Governor’s Art Award, and in 1997, OCU honored him an honorary doctorate. He received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the
Paseo Arts Association in 2009, and Oklahoma Contemporary surprised him with its first Focus Award in July.
“The idea is that we’ll have an exhibition within an exhibition at each ‘ArtNow’ and the award recipient will then have the opportunity to showcase their work,” Davis said.
“The works in his show are not brand new — some of them are newer, some of them are decades old now — and it gives the viewer the opportunity to see how Bert developed as an artist, but maintained really a strong signature style.”
Turning to teaching
As he got older and traveled less, Seabourn started teaching classes at Edmond Fine Arts Institute and Oklahoma Contemporary.
Longtime Chickasha artist and art teacher Carrie Chavers said she was fortunate to get into one of Seabourn’s popular Oklahoma Contemporary classes in 2017. She hoped Seabourn could help her break through her anxieties about painting portraits.
“My first night, I had my sketch done of the face I was gonna paint. But I wasn’t painting and I wasn’t painting, and he comes around and he goes, ‘Is everything OK? Do you need to get started?’
“I said, ‘Look, can you tell me some good colors for skin tone and stuff ?’ And he put his hand on my shoulder, he looked me in the eyes and he said, ‘You’re kidding me, right? ... Paint him any color you want,’” recalled Chavers, the owner of the Chickasha Art Center and recently retired art teacher at Chickasha High School.
“I think maybe just his confidence and his quiet demeanor helped me learn to just calm down ... he really impacted the way I painted — and you can see the color and the style reflected in what I’m doing now.”
Seabourn retired from teaching in late 2018, after he fell down the stairs of his home during a Christmas party, fracturing his skull and sustaining multiple injuries.
“It was pretty awful and the recovery was long. ... He couldn’t paint for so long, then he was in rehab for so long,” Bonnie Seabourn said. “After he got into rehab, he had them bring him a sketchbook, and he would sketch there in rehab almost every day.”
Although he has to take more breaks to rest these days, Seabourn said he plans to keep up with his daily painting sessions.
“There’s no discipline about it: I enjoy it,” he said.