William with his digital art assistant.

William teaching an art class in the Atomic Tiki Room at DECOPOLIS.

W William is a third generation, self-taught Tulsa artist who, for over 25 years, specialized in Trompe’ L’oeil murals and theatrical props & displays, for the home, business and entertainment industries. William has worked with decorators, artists and designers from all across the US and in Europe, from Tulsa to NY City, Dallas to London. His work has been featured in local and national magazines like Oklahoma Magazine, Distinctive Homes of Miami and the Beaches, and Traditional Homes Magazines.

William has on numerous occasions done work in Florida including projects at Disney World. On one of his last projects for Disney’s “Golden Oak” luxury resort community, the contractor was so impressed with his teams work that he did something he said he had never done before, contacted Disney CEO Bob Iger to have him come down and see what William’s team had done. Bob was so impressed with the work that he invited them to work for him as Disney Imagineers.  William chose to stay in Tulsa and use his talents to continue creating DECOPOLIS, which he hopes will someday grow into a much larger attraction.


Partial List of Artistic Accomplishments.
   *Founder of the DECOPOLIS Tulsa Art Deco Museum.
   *Designed and painted one of the largest mural projects in Oklahoma history, for the WinStar Casino, which took almost 2 years to complete. The project was comprised of a suite of five large ceiling murals of which the central domed mural was five stories across.  
   *2009 International Mayfest poster artist.  For over a decade painted each years Mayfest "Kite", adding to the large scale mural on Main street in Downtown Tulsa.
   *Classical portraiture art including one of Alice Brown Davis the first female Chief of the 5 Civilized Tribes of Oklahoma, to hang in the Oklahoma State Capitol Building. 
   *Commissioned by the City of Tulsa to paint a suite of Historic Murals in the new Central Center at Central Park.
   *Worked with JMC Studios to do numerous projects including theatrical style, large scale props and backgrounds for the traveling “History of the Bible” exhibit, and later an Art Deco styled mural for the new “Museum of the Bible” in Washington DC. Also in partnership with JMC studios spent a month in London UK completing a “Cityscape” backdrop composed of 2-D and 3-D sculpted components for a Television studio and Theater.
   *Created a giant gateway for the grand opening ceremony of Tulsa’s new Gathering Place park and has worked with Tulsa’s Guthrie Green to create large theatrical backdrops for events held at their outdoor stage.
   *Opened a retail store, visitor center and attraction, called DECOPOLIS, on Route 66 in Tulsa for which he designs and creates unique products, including art deco styled posters, cards, and t-shirts & souvenirs. He has also designed and built unique, themed environments within DECOPOLIS. 
   *Created the TulsaRama Gang comic strip with its cast of characters and their adventures in Jazz Age Tulsa. 

Tulsa Residence Foyer

This mural project was for a foyer in a clients home in Tulsa Oklahoma. The client wanted the works to be in an old world style with a subtle color palette. The doorway leading to a courtyard pool area needed a "Little something to dress it up." so William conceived of painting faux, sculpted stone elements around it with a "sculpted" frame having an old world painting inside. Then William also added coordinating elements up a grand staircase and in other areas of the homes foyer. 

WINSTAR   WORLD   CASINO

This mural project was perhaps the largest in Oklahoma history.  The main first phase consisted of ceiling murals depicting 5 great cities of the world, Rome, London, Paris, Madrid, & Beijing.  The canvas panels were primarily painted in Tulsa, then the taken to the Casino to be applied to the ceilings and completed there. 

This mural is about 5 stories across and is meant to represent the great city of Rome. 

This is the central panel of the Rome mural underway.  You can get a sense of the scale for this panel by noticing the tables in the background.  Before the painting was done on any of these murals, months of research and designing took place.  The canvas alone for the 5 murals cost over $20,000 and came in 14 foot wide rolls.  If all the rolls were attached together and laid out the canvas would have reached from the top of Tulsa's BOK tower to the ground.

Here the Rome mural is being installed. Again for scale, notice the small 6 foot tall red scaffolding on top of the main scaffolding, or the person in the scissor lift off to the right. 

Another view of the Rome mural. 

Here is the ceiling representing London.

And the ceiling representing Madrid.

Paris.

And Beijing.

Another part of the Winstar World Casino project William did was several dining room ceilings in the resort hotel.  This ceiling first had a shimmering metallic effect  brushed on, and large scrollwork was then painted on top. 

THEMED  ENVIRONMENTS     -    THEATRICAL  BACKDROPS    -    SCULPTURE  WORK

William spent a month in London with the JMC team painting buildings that wrapped the theater, including every tiny building you see in the far background.  Not seen in these photos were additional, highly detailed, 3-D buildings that were set on the stage in front of the background buildings which added further depth and dimension to the London Skyline effect.  

PORTRAITURE

Some of William's earliest paid commissions were for portraits.   Not every artist can do fine portraiture and one of William's proudest moments was when he was selected by Oklahoma Senator Charles Ford, and Commissioned by Senator A.J. Griffin & the Women of the 56th Legislature, to paint a portrait of Alice Brown Davis to hang in the Oklahoma State Capitol building.

Excerpt from a SEMINOLE NATION MUSEUM article...

     "On May 2nd 2018, artist William Franklin was honored at the Oklahoma State Capitol with the unveiling of his commissioned artwork, a portrait of Alice Brown Davis. Alice was the first woman to serve as Chief of the Five Civilized Tribes [Choctaw, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Muscogee(Creek), and Seminole]. She was appointed Chief in July of 1922 by President Warren G. Harding. Her selection as leader of the Seminole people became national – and international - news. Newspapers and radio stations across the US hailed the “Woman Chieftain of the Seminoles” and made the 70 year-old Wewokan a minor celebrity of the Jazz Age.
     William Franklin was accompanied on this historic occasion by Chief Chilcoat of the Seminole Nation and Miss Seminole Nation. William is now the 33rd artist to have his work on permanent display in the halls of our State Capitol."

Image of Alice Brown Davis from which William was asked to do the portrait..

William at the Capitol building during the unveiling ceremony.

While researching his subject, William found that Alice Brown spoke of fond memories of her time as superintendent of the Seminole girls' school, Emahaka.  William decided to add her beloved school into the background of her portrait. 

DIGITAL  ART  &  Product Design

In recent years William has enjoyed learning the suite of Adobe Photoshop programs.   This is quite handy when creating rough draft renderings for art projects from logo's and signage to props & displays, character design, and for creating artistic imagery for use on products like souvenirs, art prints, book covers,  and more! 

Once an image is created like this, it can then be used on multiple products like: T-shirts, Mugs, Posters & Postcards, Magnets, Keychains, Trading Pins, and more! 

William created this Tulsa Route 66 design, for tourists & locals alike, featuring numerous fun Route 66 landmarks that can be found in and near Tulsa.  

DECOPOLIS   TulsaRama! Gang!   COMICS

One of William's latest ventures is a comic strip series.  William very much admires Walt Disney and thought it would be fun if he created a cast of characters of his own for DECOPOLIS.   They will act as friendly guides throughout the Museum and shops, and each comic strip features a "Fun Fact", game or puzzle! 

Some of William's earliest sketches of the primary characters.  Bottom left to right: Derby Dash, Petey Purrsalot, Daisy Diggs & Patty Paws.

Click on the above link to see more Funnies & Fun Facts!.

Art Deco Paintings!

William loves the Art Deco style ,and one year was asked to create the poster art for Tulsa's International  Mayfest, arts festival.  While doing so he had the notion that Tulsa should have an Art Deco Museum.  William is the founder of the Tulsa Art Deco Museum.   Below is some of the artwork he has created in the Art Deco style. 

Above: The painting "Spirit of Tulsa" by William A. Franklin, was painted in 2009 for the Tulsa International Mayfest to be used as that years promotional poster art.  

Below: William next to his painting at the unveiling ceremony. 

Below: A mural painted for the "Museum of the Bible" in Washington DC.  William was asked to create a mural that would pay homage to the 1922 structures previous,  historic use  of being a large, cold storage, warehouse and distribution center. 

Below: "The Messenger" Lady Aveya, the Regent of DECOPOLIS with a messenger Gazelle.   William is writing a series of books about the Wizard of DECOPOLIS.  DECOPOLIS "The Deco City" a Tulsa that is both of the past and future, is run in part by Lady Aveya.  Acrylic on Canvas 75" X 64" 

Below: "Tulsa Skyport" painting featuring Lindy Hopper, Another character in the DECOPOLIS books.  William was inspired by Tulsa's amazing Aviation and Art Deco history when he created this painting.  Acrylic on Canvas 80" X 64"

Below: A pair of murals William painted for Tulsa's "Central Center, at Central Park".  To help decide what to paint in this newly built center, located just outside of downtown Tulsa, William set about doing some research to see what may have been on or near the property in the past. William discovered that the new building and park were built on land that used to have a public swimming pool and park on it. Across the street there used to be a school, and a trolley would run down that street. Using old photos William recreated scenes depicting the history of the area the new park and center were now inhabiting.   

Below: A couple of fun, digital art pieces by William featuring "The Wizard of DECOPOLIS"  You may have heard of Steampunk, but William is a fan of Decopunk and the artwork in his fantasy series, featuring the story of the future DECOPOLIS, is filled with fun Decopunk elements.  In the background of the first image is the Wizards starship the DSS Astrigera. In the second image we can see the Wizard meeting Flapper the Scissortail Flycatcher for the first time. Below is the pyramid at the top of the Philtower which houses the Wizards secret laboratory when he travels to 1920'-30's Tulsa.