Exhibition Catalogue

Community Perspectives

A selection of local and national institutions and organizations dedicated to Native art, history, culture, and communities.

Southwestern Association for Indian Arts / Sante Fe Indian Market

Learn more about Native art and history, past and present.

Manahatta to Manhattan: Native Americans in Lower Manhattan

Native American Indian Thought and Culture

Janet Catherine Berlo and Ruth B. Phillips, 

 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015)

Resources

Patricia Marroquin Norby (Purépecha)
Associate Curator of Native American Art, American Wing, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Sylvia Yount
Lawrence A. Fleischman Curator in Charge, American Wing, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Gaylord Torrence
Fred and Virginia Merrill Senior Curator of American Indian Art, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri

Marjorie Alexander
Curatorial Consultant, American Indian Art, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri

Kathleen Ash-Milby (Diné/Navajo)
Associate Curator, National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, New York

Bruce Bernstein
Executive Director, Ralph T. Coe Center for the Arts, Santa Fe, New Mexico

Ned Blackhawk (Western Shoshone)
Professor of History and American Studies, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut

Steven C. Brown
Program Specialist, Sealaska Heritage Institute, Juneau, Alaska

Elizabeth Hutchinson
Associate Professor, Art History, Barnard College/Columbia University, New York

Brian Vallo (Acoma)
Director, Indian Arts Research Center, School for Advanced Research, Santa Fe, New Mexico

Arthur Amiotte (Oglala Lakota/Teton Sioux)
Artist, educator, and author, Custer, South Dakota

Laurie Arnold (Sinixt Band, Colville Confederated Tribes)
Director, Native American Studies, and Assistant Professor of History, Gonzaga University, Spokane, Washington

William Bauer (Wailacki and Concow, Round Valley Indian Tribes)
Professor and Graduate Coordinator, Department of History, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Jill Doerfler (White Earth Nation)
Professor of American Indian Studies, University of Minnesota Duluth

Emma I. Hansen (Pawnee)
Curator Emerita and Senior Scholar, Plains Indian Museum, Buffalo Bill Center of the West, Cody, Wyoming

Nadia Jackinsky-Sethi (Alutiiq/Sugpiaq, Ninilchik Village Tribe)
Independent scholar, Homer, Alaska

Jeffrey D. Means (Oglala Lakota/Teton Sioux)
Associate Professor and Chair, Department of History, University of Wyoming, Laramie

Joshua L. Reid (Snohomish)
Associate Professor of History/American Indian Studies, University of Washington, Seattle

Jolene Rickard (Tuscarora, Turtle Clan)
Associate Professor, Department of Art History, and Director, American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York

W. Richard West Jr. (Southern Cheyenne)
President and Chief Executive Officer, Autry Museum of the American West, Los Angeles, and Founding Director, National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

Exhibition Credits

746 South

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Over 5,000 years of art from around the world.

New Years Day

Thanksgiving

Christmas Day

The Met Fifth Avenue

Headdress frontlet

Mask

Polacca polychrome water jar

Basket bowl

Woman’s Dress and Accessories

Untitled (Dream Catcher)

Shirt

Basket with Lid

Lidded Trunk

War club

Pouch

Shot pouch

Headdress

Bandolier Bag

Shakhùkwiàn (Man’s Coat)

Comb

Bowl

Belt cup

Scrimshaw Study

Shaman's rattle

Guardian figure staff

Dagger 

Rattle

Raven rattle

Clapper

Portrait figure

Soul catcher

Amulet

Woman's hood

Tunic and leggings

Parka

Boy's Shirt

Ladle

Maskette

Dagger

Dance object

Snow goggles

Harpoon counterweight

Handle fragment (?)

Toggle

Transformational figure

Atlatl

Beaded Bag

Flat Bag

Pendant with figure

Infant's vest

Infant's cap

Boys moccasins

Cradleboard

Blanket strip

Boy's shirt

Moccasins

Girl's Boot Moccassins

Boy's jacket

Swift Dog Strikes an Enemy

Short Bull Falls from Wounded Horse 

Tipi bag

Quirt handle

Pair of parfleche envelopes

Black-on-Black Jar

Double-lobed polychrome canteen

Socorro black-on-white storage jar

Chief's blanket

Serape

White Ogre Tihu (Katsina Figure)

Powhoge polychrome storage jar

Gift basket

Ensemble

AW SpEx 2021 Art of Native America

The brilliance of Native American artists from across the United States and Canada is affirmed in this installation of historical and contemporary works. Honoring the diversity of Native life, the display reveals complex perspectives on America’s past and the deep significance of these artworks to Native and non-Native communities in the present. The work of more than fifty Indigenous groups is represented, as well as major Native American aesthetic forms: painting, drawing, sculpture, textiles, quill and bead embroidery, basketry, and ceramics.

Most of the items—made to be worn; to nourish; to hunt, defend, and protect; to cradle the young; and to restore balance and wellness—are from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Also included are modern and contemporary artworks that demonstrate unbroken aesthetic lineages. All were created against the backdrop of ongoing Euro-American colonialism and environmental devastation. They are organized into seven geographical regions: Woodlands, Northwest Coast, Arctic, Plateau, Plains, Southwest, and California and Great Basin.

This long-term installation consists primarily of promised gifts, donations, and loans from the major collectors Charles and Valerie Diker as well as other patrons. Their belief in the power of these works to broaden historical, cultural, and aesthetic understandings inspired their generosity. The presentation marks the commitment of the American Wing, established in 1924, to foregrounding Native cultural expressions and perspectives in meaningful, inclusive contexts.

This statement demonstrates our institutional commitment to respectfully recognizing the original Native American communities and their kinship ties to the lands and waters of this place.

The American Wing acknowledges the sovereign Native American and Indigenous communities dispossessed from the lands and waters of this region. We affirm our intentions for ongoing relationships with contemporary Native American and Indigenous artists and the original communities whose ancestral and aesthetic items we care for.

We understand that these items—vibrant expressions of Native sovereignty, identity, and connections to community and family—embody intergenerational and environmental knowledge, including origin stories, languages, songs, dances, and ties to homelands.

We commit to pursuing continuous collaborations with Indigenous communities and to presenting Native American art in a manner that is inclusive of Indigenous perspectives, involves guidance from source communities, and creates space for respectful listening and thoughtful dialogue. We will work to advance Indigenous experiences in The Met’s exhibitions, collections, and programs.

We will strengthen our awareness of historical and contemporary environmental issues in the New York region and throughout North America, in order to thoughtfully reckon with our institutional legacy and its impact on the lands, waters, and original peoples of this place, which are, and will always be, inextricable.

The catalogue is made possible by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Art of Native America: The Charles and Valerie Diker Collection is complemented by the exhibition Artistic Encounters with Indigenous America, on view at The Met Fifth Avenue from December 3, 2018, through May 13, 2019.

Native Perspectives

Art of Native America: The Charles and Valerie Diker Collection

The Met presents over 5,000 years of art from around the world for everyone to experience and enjoy.

Art of Native America: The Charles and Valerie Diker Collection

Institutions and Organizations

Further Reading

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