Murv Jacob

Murv Jacob (January 27, 1945 - February 26, 2019) was an American artist and illustrator.He is known for his paintings illustrating the culture of the Cherokee tribe and the landscape of the southeastern United States.

Jacob was born in Glendale, Ohio. Raised in eastern Kansas, he attended San Bernardino Valley College in California.

From 1965 to 1967 Jacob lived in San Francisco, where he made posters for artists such as Allen Ginsberg and the Grateful Dead.He returned to Kansas in 1971, and in 1984 moved to Tahlequah, Oklahoma, a center for the culture of the Cherokee Nation.

Jacob created oil and acrylic paintings portraying the old and modern Cherokee dances, and the villages, animals, landscapes and perhaps best known for his illustrations of the old Cherokee animal stories especially those about Ji-sdu the rabbit and Yona the bear.

In 2011, Jacob co-wrote and illustrated the book Secret History of the Cherokees

In 2015, Jacob was in the news when a neighbors insisted that he remove a graffiti-like painting which he had commissioned on the side wall of his studio fifteen years before.

Jacob died on February 26, 2019.

Jacob won more than 50 awards, and has twice been voted Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers' Illustrator of the Year. In 2012, he won the Wordcraft Circle Award for Secret History of the Cherokees.

Jacob and his partner Debbie Duvall, who have collaborated on a dozen books, received the “Oklahoma Book Award” in 2005 for their seven book series “The Grandmother Stories”.