DIANE O’LEARY

- DIANE O’LEARY (OPECHE-NAH-SE) -

Comanche, 1935-2013

Diane O’Leary (Opeche-Nah-Se) was a Comanche–Irish multimedia artist whose practice bridged painting, printmaking, fiber arts, and medical illustration. Raised in Texas, she pursued wide-ranging studies—including nursing and the sciences—before turning fully to art, a background that informed the anatomical precision and empathy in her figurative works centered on Native women and on the dignity of oppressed communities and the environment.

By the late 1960s O’Leary had settled in Taos, New Mexico (1967), where she studied with Emil Bisttram and Eric Gibberd and moved in a circle that included Georgia O’Keeffe. Her work from this period combined Bacone School influences (via study at Bacone College) with abstraction and textile-based processes; she also produced politically engaged images and quilts, reflecting her activism and public-health perspective. O’Leary remained prolific across media—painting, works on paper, and fiber—while advocating for Native rights and environmental justice until her death in 2013.

O’Leary’s work is held in numerous museum and institutional collections. Reported holdings include the Denver Art Museum; the Heard Museum (Phoenix); the Philbrook Museum of Art (Tulsa); the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian (Santa Fe); the Millicent Rogers Museum (Taos); the Peabody Museum at Harvard University; the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation (New York); Stanford University; and others. Some sources also list the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and international collections such as the Bern Museum (Switzerland). (Institutional lists vary by source; representative citations provided below.)