A statue honoring a local ballerina was stolen in Oklahoma. This artist puts it back together -...

Sculptor Gary Henson examines the lines of fused bronze on a statue he’s reassembling.

The statue of Marjorie Tallchief, one of the famous Native Oklahoma ballerinas, has sweat scars on the waist, arms, legs, and neck. The 6-foot-tall work of art was stolen from the Tulsa Historical Society compound last May and later recovered from two different Tulsa-area junkyards. It had been cut up and hammered to pieces.

Henson sculpted and cast in bronze the statue of Marjorie Tallchief, one of five ballerinas on display outside the museum celebrating the Five Moons – native ballerinas Yvonne Chouteau, Rosella Hightower, Moscelyne Larkin and Maria Tallchief, Marjorie’s older sister – the to international fame in the second half of the 20th century.

LOOK AT: New project highlights work by contemporary Native American artists

Henson began collaborating with Monte England on the sculptures shortly after the project began. He finished it in 2007, two years after England’s death.

Before Marjorie’s statue was cut from its base, the ballerina was portrayed in a pose from the ballet Idyll. In a 1954 promotional image for the performance, Tallchief has one foot crossed to the other knee and her arms raised behind her as she gazes at the floor.