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$8 for Gilcrease -- maybe it's a good thing
Published: 6/26/2008 1:55 PM
Last Modified: 6/26/2008 1:55 PM

After 53 years, Gilcrease Museum is going to make us pay. The museum plans to initiate a new policy, charging $8 per adult for admission to the museum.

Already there are a few comments bemoaning the fact -- the economy is so bad, people are likely to avoid the museum now that they can't get in free, etc., etc.

The problem is, people -- Tulsans -- tend to avoid museums in general, and Gilcrease in particular, anyway.

I remember a conversation I had several years ago with J. Brooks Joyner, soon after he took over as the museum's executive director. He talked about how he had spoken with many Tulsans he had met in the course of a few days -- at grocery stores, gas stations, other public places. He asked them if they had ever been to Gilcrease Museum. Almost without exception, these people said, yes they had -- back when they were in grade school and the museum was a field trip destination.

When Joyner asked if they had ever thought of returning to the museum, the answer he most often received was some variation on "Why should I? It's still the same old stuff there."

Well, no, it isn't. Like any good museum -- and in spite of all its problems of late, Gilcrease Museum remains a good museum -- Gilcrease is a living thing. Of course you can find things that have always been there and on display -- the Remington and Russell works, Thomas Moran's gigantic paintings, Willard Stone's wood carvings, and so on.

But as those who go to museums regularly know, every visit is a voyage of discovery. There is always something new to see.

Gilcrease is frequently and rightly described as having one of the world's best collections of the art and history of the American West.

Consider this comparison: Philbrook and the University of Oklahoma recently shared in a gift of Southwestern and American Indian art from the estate of Tulsan Brady Adkins. The value of that gift was estimated at $50.

About the same time as that announcement was made, Gilcrease was shipping off 33 paintings, 11 sculptures and about two dozen American Indian artifacts to be part of an exhibit on the American West at a museum in Italy.

The total value of those objects loaned out to the Italian museum -- a collection that barely scratched the surface of Gilcrease's holding -- was close to $125 million.

It's mind-boggling, what is contained in that building at the top of a hill in northwest Tulsa. But it is something that the people who live here -- who should be inordinately proud to call their own -- take for granted.

Maybe requiring an admission fee at the front door is a way to get across the value of Gilcrease Museum to the people of Tulsa. This place is worth paying to visit.


Recently Gilcrease contributed several paintings to an exhibition of American Western art shown in Italy. The total value of those works was estimated to be $125 million.


Reader Comments 2 Total
amy (5 years ago)
There has to be a better way....my family has visited there many times, and it is always on our list of places to take out of town visitors, who think it is fantastic!
But $8....well, that's a little much when you are contemplating 6-8 people (I won't pay that at the movies, either). Five would have been much more reasonable.
Ben (5 years ago)
I go to Gilcrease nearly every time I'm in town, and I'll continue to do so. Not that museum prices don't make a difference—here in New York you regularly pay $15 or $20 for museum admission, and therefore my favorite destination is the Met, where admission fees are voluntary. But $8 ain't bad.

I enjoy the blog!
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ARTS

James D. Watts Jr. has lived in Oklahoma for most his life, even though he still has people saying to him, "Don't sound like you're from around these parts." A University of Oklahoma Phi Beta Kappa graduate, Watts has received the Governor Arts Award, Harwelden Award and the National Conference of Christians and Jews Beth Macklin Award for his writing. Before coming to the Tulsa World, Watts worked for the Tulsa Tribune.

Contact him at (918) 581-8478.

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