Career
The widow of painter Jerome Tiger, she has served as the caretaker of her husband’s artistic legacy since his death in 1967. She wrote one of the first biographies on the life of Jerome Tiger and his artwork. Tiger is also the mother of Cherokee artist and women"s rights activist, Dana Tiger.
Born in 1943, Peggy Tiger was raised in the towns of Muskogee and Eufaula, Oklahoma.
They had three children together, Dana, Lisa, and Christopher, who was two weeks old when Jerome was killed at the age of twenty-six in a gun accident. She also continued coursework at Bacone College and Northeastern State University, graduating from the latter with a bachelor’s degree in American Studies.
She and Molly formed the Jerome Tiger Art Company in 1969, and Molly traveled to promote the prints while Peggy ran the home office, answering the phone, taking orders, and informing potential buyers about the artist and his art The two women also worked together on the 1980 book, The Life and Art of Jerome Tiger: War to Peace, Death to Life (University of Oklahoma Press, 1980), which was both a detailed biography as well as an art book
The Tiger Art Gallery was formed later, and Peggy ran that for many years.
Originating as a t-shirt business to sell the designs of Johnny Tiger, Jerome’s brother, it later became even more of a family affair. Today it includes Johnny’s work as well as that of two of Peggy and Jerome’s children, Dana and Chris (who was killed in a 1990 shooting), and Dana’s children, Christie and Lisan. Beginning in 2004, Peggy worked for the Cherokee Nation as a researcher and writer
Lisa is a well-known Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome activist and motivational speaker.