ArtPage on American Indian Art

American Indian art or Native American art - Art produced by the first Americans and their descendants.
[Expect a more in-depth article to appear here soon.]

Examples:

Mogollon culture, southwestern New Mexico, Mimbres River Valley, Mimbres Bowl, 1000-1150 CE, Mimbres classic black-on-white style II, painted earthenware, height 4 3/4 inches (12.1 cm), diameter 11 1/4 inches (28.6 cm), Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Represented in this design are geometric shapes including an image of a quail.

Four Bears, also known as Mató-Tópe (Mandan, c.1795-1837), Battle with a Cheyanne Chief, 1833, watercolor and pencil on paper, 12 3/8 x 15 3/8 inches, Joslyn Art Museum, NB.

United States, Arizona, Navajo peoples, Wearing Blanket, 1860-70, wool weaving, 69 x 48 inches (175.3 x 121.9 cm), Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY.

Zuni Pueblo, New Mexico, Water Jar (Olla), c. 1875, earthenware, white slip, pigments, 11 1/2 x 13 11/16 inches, (29.2 x 34.7 cm), Cincinnati Art Museum, OH.

Probably Nakota, Yankton Sioux, Northern Plains, Shield, late nineteenth century, buffalo rawhide, native tanned leather, calico cloth, hawk feathers, pigment, diameter 20 1/16 inches (51.0 cm), Cincinnati Art Museum, OH.

Silver Horn (American, Haungooah), and other, unknown artists, Kiowa, Plains, Silver Horn Target Record Book, 1890s, drawings on 119 leaves of a bound record book -- a book intended to be used for recording Army target-practice sessions; National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. Drawings include scenes of warfare, courting, personal dress, the Sun Dance, and stories of the mythical trickster figure, Saynday. At the end of the volume is a 30-page pictorial diary. The drawings were made while Silver Horn was enlisted in Troop L of the 7th Cavalry, based at Fort Sill, Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). See other Kiowa drawings.

A'ani/Nakoda (American, Gros Ventre/Assiniboine; Montana, Fort Belknap Indian Reservation), Pair of moccasins, c. 1880-1910, animal hide, beads, 4 1/8 x 4 7/16 x 11 7/8 inches (each), Minneapolis Institute of Arts. See leather.

Pueblo people (San Ildefonso Pueblo, New Mexico), Toña Peña Vigil (dates unknown, still active in 1915), or Martina Vigil (1856-1916) and Florentino Montoya (1858-1918) 1890-95, Storage Jar, fired clay and slip, 15 x 17 1/4 x 17 1/4 inches, Birmingham Museum of Art.

Julian Martinez (American, San Ildefonso Pueblo, New Mexico, 1885-1943), Avanyu, c. 1923, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Wasington, DC.

María Martinez and Julian Martinez, Plate, c. 1930s, ceramic blackware, 1 7/8 x 14 5/8 inches diameter (4.8 x 37.2 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC.

Tonita Peña/Quah Ah (American, San Ildefonso Pueblo, New Mexico, 1895-1949)

Abel Sanchez (American, San Ildefonso Pueblo, New Mexico, 1899-1971)

Fred Kabotie (American, Hopi, 1900-1986). Kabotie was one of numerous Indian artists to study with Dorothy Dunn at the Santa Fe Indian School.

Lucy M. Lewis (American, Acoma Pueblo, New Mexico, 1902-1992), Bowl, c. 1960-1965, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC.

Lucy M. Lewis, Jar, 1983, earthenware, 9 1/2 x 12 inches, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington D.C.

Ma-Pe-Wi (American, Zia Pueblo, New Mexico, 1902-1973)

Margaret Tafoya (American Indian, 1904-), Jar, c. 1965, blackware, 17 x 13 inches, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC.

Acee Blue Eagle (American, Creek/Pawnee, 1907-1959)

Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Crumbo (American, Creek/Potawatomi, 1912-1989)

Allan Houser (American, Chiricahua Apache, 1915-1994), The Wild Horses, 1953, watercolor, Heard Museum, Phoenix, AZ. Houser was a student at the Santa Fe Indian School with Dorothy Dunn.

Oscar Howe (American, Yanktonai Sioux, 1915-1983), Ghost Dance, 1960, watercolor, Heard Museum, Phoenix, AZ. Margaret Archuleta and others at the Heard Museum have written that "In the 1950s, many Native American artists abandoned Traditional Indian Painting and began to develop a style of painting that adopted modernist movements such as Cubism and Abstract Expressionism as vehicles for expression of Indian cosmology. This new approach to Indian painting was referred to as 'Non-Traditional Styles of Indian Painting' in the 1959 Philbrook Art Center's annual Indian painting show. It soon became known as New Indian Painting." Oscar Howe is considered one of the most important in this group, Ghost Dance having been influenced by Color Field painting. Oscar Howe became one of the many American Indians pushing against what some call the buckskin ceiling. See dance.

Harrison Begay (American, 1917), Navajo, Untitled (Scene from Enemyway Ceremony), c. 1960, tempera on paper, 22 3/8 x 30 1/2 inches, Joslyn Art Museum, NB.

Wayne Eagleboy (American, contemporary), We the People, 1971, Art Wagon Gallery. Contemporary Native American Wayne Eagleboy's version of the US flag bears portraits of two Indian men behind a screen of barbed-wire. The painting is framed with fur.

Jaune Quick-To-See Smith (American, Salish/Cree/Shoshone, 1940-), Famous Names, 1998, oil, acrylic, collaged photographs and mixed media on canvas, 80 x 50 inches (203.2 cm x 127 cm), Memorial Art Gallery of the U of Rochester, NY. See feminism and feminist art.

Arthur Amiotte (American, 1942-), Oglala Lakota (Sioux), Ascent of the Maiden, 1964, casein (tempera) on paper, 23 x 17 in.; 58.42 x 43.18 cm, Joslyn Art Museum, NB.

Bob Haozous (American, Chiricahua Apache/Navajo/English/Spanish, 1943-), Portable Pueblo, 1988, steel, 94 x 101 x 33 inches, Joslyn Art Museum, NB.

Pamela Shields (American, Blackfoot / Blood Band, contemporary), Blood, Rust, Hair, 1994, mixed-media photograph, 30 x 60 x 2 1/2 inches, Heard Museum, Phoenix, AZ.

Harry Fonseca (American, Maidu, contemporary)

Antique Tribal Art Dealers Association (ATADA). Among the cool features here is a section in which photos of stolen tribal artifacts are posted.
The Heard Museum in Phoenix, Arizona, promotes appreciation and respect for Native people and their cultural heritage, with emphasis on the traditional cultures of the Greater Southwest and on the evolving Native American Fine Art Movement.
The Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, Washington, DC.
NativeTech: Native American Technology & Arts is dedicated to disconnecting the term "primitive" from perceptions of Native American art and technology, with emphasis on peoples of the Eastern Woodlands. Find here articles on such topics as beadwork, clay and pottery, games and toys, leather and clothes, metalwork, porcupine quills, stonework and tools, weaving and cordage, and especially contemporary issues.
Find links to American Indian art sites at Yahoo.
Navajo Timeline.
Cherokee Timeline.

Also see Australian Aboriginal art, archaeology, architecture, buckskin ceiling, Canadian art, ceramics, costume, design, drawing, ethnic, genre, jewelry, landscape, material culture, museum, narrative art, photography, portrait, Pre-Columbian art, sculpture, textile, vessel, and watercolor, among many other articles.