Acee Blue Eagle

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Acee Blue Eagle (1907 – 1959), also called Alex McIntosh; Chebon Ah Bu Lah, Laughing Boy; and Lumhee Holattee, Blue Eagle, was a Creek-Pawnee artist.

He was born near Anadarko, Oklahoma, into the Mcintosh family, a family which has given the Creek tribe of Oklahoma many of its Chiefs. He studied at Chilocco Indian School; Bacone College; University of Oklahoma, Norman; Oklahoma State Technical School, Okmulgee, and Haskell Institute, Lawrence, Kansas, where a business administration building is named Blue Eagle Hall in his honor.

In 1935, Blue Eagle was invited to give a series of lectures on American Indian art at Oxford University in England, and he took Europe by storm. Returning to the United States, he established the Art Department at Bacone College in 1935, and directed the program until 1938. Blue Eagle gained worldwide fame during his lifetime, and his two-dimensional paintings hang in private and public galleries all over the world. Acee was well known for painting large interior murals, some of which are still preserved in Oklahoma. One of Acee's murals was in the dining hall of the USS Oklahoma.

He was elected into the Indian Hall of Fame, Who's Who of Oklahoma, and the International Who's Who. He was chosen "Outstanding Indian in the United States" in 1958. Blue Eagle served in the United States Air Corps during World War II. He died in 1959, and is buried in the National Cemetery at Fort Gibson, Oklahoma.