Sold at Auction: Fred Beaver

Fred Beaver (2 July 1911 – 18 August 1980) was a prominent Muscogee Creek-Seminole painter and muralist from Oklahoma.

Fred Beaver was born in Eufaula, Oklahoma. His Muscogee name was Ekalanee, meaning "Brown Head." He was the son of Willie Beaver and Annie Johnson, was raised in Eufaula, and attended the Eufaula High School. He had become the All-State football and basketball star player. His grandfather was the sub-chief of the Okfuskee town in Alabama named Itshaus Micco, and had moved his town to where Eufaula is today.

Before Beaver had attended grade school, he was not able to speak any English and became a self-taught artist throughout the years of school. Graduating from high school in 1931, Beaver went straight into college at Bacone College. Beaver was an important part of the early Bacone College in Muskogee, Oklahoma. He had attended the Haskell Business College after graduating from Bacone in 1935.

Beaver really had no art training at Bacone while he was there and gave up his art career during the Great Depression and went to serve in World War II. Once he had returned to the United States, he picked up his art career again and had a great teacher and second cousin on his wife’s side of the family, named Acee Blue Eagle.