Nokomis and Nanaboozhoo

2024

On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 744

Deploying the visual language of European Old Master painters, Strickland brings viewers into the world of Ojibwe ancestral oral histories. Here, two key figures from the canon of Anishinaabe storytelling are represented. Marked by his rabbit ears and legs, the Anishinaabe trickster figure Nanabozhoo is led out of a forest by his Nokomis (Grandmother), her antlers representing wisdom. Accompanying them is an entourage of Great Lakes wildlife—ajijaakwag (sandhill crane), gijigijigaaneshiinhyag (chickadee), and memengwaag (butterfly). By depicting this tender moment between generations and across species, Strickland affirms understandings of kinship and respect, central principles within Anishinaabe homelands.

Artwork Details

Overview

Provenance

Title: Nokomis and Nanaboozhoo
Artist: Rabbett Before Horses Strickland (Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, born 1949)
Date: 2024
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 48 × 69 1/2 × 1 in. (121.9 × 176.5 × 2.5 cm)
Credit Line: Purchase, Dorothy Schwartz Gift, 2024
Object Number: 2024.200
Curatorial Department: The American Wing

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