The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture

OWENS, WALLACE A., JR. (1932– ).

An African-American artist and educator, Wallace A. Owens, Jr., was born on December 28, 1932, to Sarah and Wallace A. Owens, Sr., near Summitt in Muskogee County, Oklahoma. After serving in the U.S. Army from 1953 to 1955, Owens, Jr., earned a bachelor’s degree in art education at Langston University (Langston, Oklahoma) in 1959, a master’s degree in education at Central State University (now University of Central Oklahoma, Edmond) in 1965, and an M.F.A. from the University of Guanajuato in Mexico in 1966. He also received a Fulbright Scholarship to study at the University of Rome (Italy) and he also toured West Africa.

A working artist and educator, from 1966 to 1983 Owens taught at Langston, becoming chair of the art department. From 1980 to 2005 he taught at the University of Central Oklahoma. Primarily a modernist, he created prints, sculpture, paintings, and ceramics for shows in Oklahoma and the Midwest. After retiring in 2005, he opened Owens Art Place Gallery in Guthrie and worked from a studio at his ranch home near Guthrie. He continued a creative life well into retirement.

Organizations exhibiting Owens’s work have included the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art (Norman), the Oklahoma Gallery at Omniplex (Oklahoma City), the Melvin B. Tolson Black Heritage Center (Langston), and the Oklahoma City Art Association. He has been a member of the Oklahoma Arts Council, the Ntu Art Association Board of Directors, and the Oklahoma Sculpture Society. In 2016 he was inducted into the Oklahoma African American Educators Hall of Fame. In 2021 he received the Marquis Who’s Who Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award and an Oklahoma Governor’s Arts Award for a lifetime of service to art education. In 2023 he was a featured artist in the East Gallery of the Oklahoma State Capitol.

Dianna Everett