Ask any Ponca City resident the name of the sculptor who created the Pioneer Woman statue and he or she will probably answer Bryant Baker says Hugh Pickens, Executive Director of Pickens Museum.
“However, Bryant Baker did not create the Pioneer Woman single-handedly. Actually, Baker led a team of sculptors who worked on the iconic sculpture that has long been a symbol of our Oklahoma heritage” says Pickens. “And foremost on Baker’s team was Donald De Lue, who worked as Bryant Baker’s chief assistant from 1923 to 1938 and played a key role in the creation of the Pioneer Woman.”
Now Oklahomans can see work by Donald De Lue for themselves in an exhibition that Pickens Museum has opened at Northern Oklahoma College in the Vineyard Library/Administration building in Tonkawa.
Visitors to the Pickens Museum exhibit at NOC can see the maquette for “Quest Eternal” plus ten sketches that De Lue produced with the same theme.
Born Donald H. Quigley in Boston, the artist took the name De Lue in 1918 from the maternal side of his family. At an early age De Lue studied with Bela Pratt at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, but most of his training came from working in the studios of older sculptors. De Lue spent three years with Richard Recchia, and another three with the Englishman Robert P. Baker, brother of Bryant Baker with whom De Lue would later be employed for fifteen years. After World War I De Lue worked on a tramp steamer to get to Europe and spent five years in France where he worked for several sculptors, including Alfredo Pena.
Returning to the United States, De Lue worked from 1923 to 1938 as chief assistant to Bryant Baker in New York City. While working for Baker, De Lue had a key role in the creation of the “Pioneer Woman” statue.
“Bryant Baker primarily created busts during his career and he was very skilled in throwing a likeness of a client or of a prominent public figure,” says Pickens. “But Baker’s strengths did not include musculature and doing full bodies.
According to art historian Donald Roger Howlett, when De Lue went to work as Baker’s chief assistant in 1923, he was the perfect addition to the Baker studio. “De Lue’s greatest talents lay in the areas where Bryant Baker was weakest,” writes Howlett.
“Baker was a highly competent sculptor who had the ability to capture a portrait ...
