A Tulsa Native American artist has thousands of dollars in artwork stolen

A well known Oklahoma artist is hoping for the return of a trailer load of his artwork. The trailer, containing about $25,000 worth of paintings and prints, was stolen early Sunday afternoon from his

Monday, February 28th 2005, 6:51 am

By: News On 6

A well known Oklahoma artist is hoping for the return of a trailer load of his artwork. The trailer, containing about $25,000 worth of paintings and prints, was stolen early Sunday afternoon from his home in the 2800 block of South 87th East Avenue.

News on 6 reporter Rick Wells talked to the artist about what he lost and how he'll prepare for an up-coming show.

"Mostly Cherokee warriors running through here." Talmadge Davis is working on a new painting, a little more frantically now perhaps than before Sunday. Someone stole a trailer loaded with lots of his artwork. "They took about 61 paper prints and canvas prints."

There were two originals and all the display panels he would have used at the show in the stolen trailer. The tire tracks are still there in the mud; in fact you can see boot prints, probably of the guys who stole it.

The trailer they stole was a smaller version of a black 5 foot by 8 foot motorcycle trailer. "I think that's what they thought they were getting was a motorcycle. Unfortunately they took my business."

Davis one of Oklahoma's better known Native American artists. And he will be the featured artist at Tulsaâ€™s Native American art show in two weeks. "This one here I've already been working on for about three weeks." He says he'll be able to finish two new paintings. He'll borrow some previous works and repackage some other materials, but it's all very disappointing. "We'll be at the show and we'll have a display, it just won't be the one I wanted."

In the meantime he'll paint and hope for the best. "At this point we don't even care about pressing charges; we just want the art back and the trailer back." And truthfully, heâ€™d probably settle for just the art work.

Once again, it's a 6 foot high, 5 foot by 8 foot black trailer with chrome splash boards.

If you have any information that might help find it you can call Crimestoppers 596-COPS.