A native of Rose Prairie, Dick attended Sequoyah Indian School at Tahlequah and Chilocco Indian School. He finished high school at Bagley school in Tahlequah. He took one year of art training at the U.S. Indian School in Santa Fe, N.M. His father, Andrew Jackson Dick, was a lawman who served many years as U.S. marshal for "Hanging Judge" Isaac Parker of Fort Smith, Ark. Cecil Dick, an orphan at 13, hitchhiked his way to Chilocco "so I'd have a place to eat and sleep in the winter." There, he learned English, and teachers recognized his artistic talent. They sent him to the Santa Fe school, but Dick was not satisfied there because Plains Indian style dominated the art training. Plains Indians drew line drawings on old skins with no background, Dick said, "because on the plains the horizon and the sky blend together, so you don't really need a background. This idea generally became accepted as the Indian style of art." Dick said he was "a woodland Indian" and wanted to give his work the woodland flavor based on his Cherokee culture. Dick only had one exhibition of his work, a 50-year retrospective at the Cherokee National Museum in Tahlequah, because he said he never had enough paintings on hand for a show. "They're always sold before I finish them... I never intended to be prolific. My basic intention has always been quality." That quality earned him several honors. He was the fourth person in the history of the Cherokee Nation to receive its Heritage Award. The others were Sequoyah, developer of the Cherokee alphabet, and Jack and Anna Kilpatrick, a writing team specializing in the Cherokees. Dick was the first Indian to win the competition in the Oklahoma Artists Exhibition at Philbrook Museum in Tulsa. He was the first recipient of the Master of Heritage Award from the Five Tribes Museum in Muskogee. He was honored at the 1991 Red Earth Celebration in Oklahoma City. He was a past president and spiritual leader of the Cherokee Artists Association and a member of the Etchison Memorial Methodist Church in Tahlequah. During World War II, he was an aircraft illustrator in Tulsa. After the war, he was a draftsman and tool designer for a California firm before returning to Tahlequah where he became a sign painter. Surviving are his wife, Bessie; a son, Cecil Roy Dick Jr. of Visalia, Calif.; two daughters, Polly Ann Reed of Oaks and Rachel Rasdal of Klamath Falls, Ore.; 17 grandchildren and 25 great-grandchildren. Funeral services will be Wednesday at 2 pm at Grace Baptist Church. Burial will follow at Tahlequah City Cemetery under the direction of Moore's Eastlawn Chapel in Tulsa.
Tulsa World
April 1992