Few other artists have become so identified with their state as Oklahoma's Charles Banks Wilson. He was a painter, printmaker, teacher, lecturer, historian, magazine and book illustrator. His work has been shown in over 200 exhibitions in this country and throughout the world. The permanent collections of major museums and galleries that contain his paintings and prints of Oklahoma life are some of the most renown in the world. These include New York's Metropolitan Museum, Washington's Library of Congress, The Corcoran Gallery, Oklahoma State Capital, and the Smithsonian.

Author and editor of a standard work on the Indian Tribes of Eastern Oklahoma, he is also the illustrator of 22 books as well as contributing illustrations to many more. Oklahoma school children studied from a history text book containing over 50 of his drawings. Other works include such prize-winning books as the classic Treasure Island, Company of Adventurers, Henry's Lincoln, and the late J. Frank Dobie's personal favorite, Mustangs. Writers have said that the paintings by Charles Banks Wilson breathe the spirit of the southwest. It can also be said that his mural "The Trapper's Bride", commissioned by the late John D. Rockefeller, Jr., in 1995, ranks among the finest records of the far west's fur trade.

Besides the Oklahoma Press Association's portrait of Will Rogers, Wilson also did the life portrait of Thomas Gilcrease, who established Tulsa's Gilcrease Museum. (This museum owned 55 works by the artist until David W. Hearn, Jr., purchased 26 lithographs in 1995). His famous sitters include U.S. House Speaker Carl Albert, whose portrait is the first to hang in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., prior to permanent installation in the U.S. Capitol Speaker's Gallery. Four mural sized portraits of Will Rogers, the Indian Sequoyah, U.S. Senator Robert Kerr, and athlete Jim Thorpe are viewed annually by more than one million visitors at the Oklahoma Capital Rotunda. The Oklahoma painter is best known for his pictures of contemporary Indian life, a project which has engaged him since his early thirties. The "Ten Little Indians" portfolio created by Wilson has been reproduced in every country in the world.

Honored by the U.S. State Department as well as the International Institute of Arts and Letters in Geneva, Charles Banks Wilson received the first Governor's Art Award and the D.S.C. (Distinguished Service Citation ) from the University of Oklahoma. Wilson is honored in the Oklahoma Hall of Fame and is the recipient of the Western Heritage award from the Cowboy Hall of Fame.

The artist created the designs for "The First American Series", basalt medallions depicting famous Indian chiefs, produced by Josiah Wedgewood and Sons, Inc., England. His major undertaking has been the murals totaling 110 feet in length for the Oklahoma Capitol Rotunda presenting the state's discovery, frontier trade, Indian immigration, settlement, and overall history