Mask, ca. 1850. Alaska, Tlingit. Lent by Mr. and Mrs. Charles Diker, New York (DAC 545).
Gallery for the Art of Native North America
Opened November 14, 2007 Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas—The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing, 1st floor
The Museum's renovated gallery devoted to Native North American art displays approximately ninety works made by numerous American peoples. Ranging from the beautifully shaped stone tools known as bannerstones of several millennia B.C. to a mid-1970s tobacco bag, the objects illustrate a wide variety of cultural backgrounds, artistic styles, and functional purposes, all qualities inherent in the art of the peoples of the large North American continent. Works include wood sculpture from the Northwest Coast of North America, ivory carvings from the Arctic, wearing blankets from the Southwest, and objects of hide from the Great Plains. Anchored by the Metropolitan's American Indian holdings drawn from the Michael C. Rockefeller Memorial Collection, the installation is augmented by loans from the well-known private collections of Ralph T. Coe of Santa Fe and Mr. and Mrs. Charles Diker of New York.
