Editor's note: In the early 1970s, Tulsa delivered two of the world’s most promising young photographers, Larry Clark and Gaylord Herron. Clark went on to international fame. Herron disappeared, or so the narrative went. This story from the May 1, 2012 issue of This Land challenges that narrative with a thorough biography of Herron, quietly one of Oklahoma's great enigmatic artists.
When the art book Vagabond came out in 1975, I was running a photo gallery in the French Quarter of New Orleans. The art community was stunned into a pensive silence of admiration and envy by the sheer power of Larry Clark’s 1971 book Tulsa—one of the more evocative and influential photography books ever published. Suddenly people were interested in my hometown.
“Did you know these guys?” they would ask. To New Orleanians, Tulsa was a cozy village up in the plains where surely everyone knew everyone.
When Vagabond arrived on my doorstep, I lent my copy to my partner in the gallery. He took it home to check it out. The next morning he handed it back to me.
“Incredible,” he said, “What the hell’s going on up there?”
What indeed. In the early 1970s, Tulsa arts yielded up three legitimate international stars, Larry Clark, Leon Russell, and J.J. Cale, along with an extensive cast of supporting talent. David Gates, Mary Kay Place, Gailard Sartain were hitting their stride, and what they had in common was Tulsa. Gaylord Herron fell into no easy category, neither leading man nor supporting cast. Vagabond was a true one-off—there’s been nothing like it before or since.