Innholdsfortegnelse for June - July 2019 / No.21 i Native American Art Magazine

Vincent Mirabal painting sets record at Santa Fe Art Auction SANTA FE, NM The Santa Fe Art Auction’s April 20 sale saw another successful year with a 93 percent sell-through rate and multiple records for many of the featured artists. One of the stand-out lot in the sale was a gouache on paper by Vincent Mirabal (Chiu-tah). Completed in 1939, Ceremonial Sunset Dance soared past its high estimate of $8,000, selling for a record $12,500. Works featured in the April sale focused exclusively on American Indian art from the collection of Patricia Janis Broder, a seasoned horsewoman and passionate aficionado of Western art and culture. Other notable lots in the sale include an Alfonso Roybal (Awa Tsireh) at $10,000, and a Gilbert Atencio (Wah Peen) for $8,750. Eiteljorg Indian Market…

THROUGH JUNE 2 JACKSON, MS Visual Voices: Contemporary Chickasaw Art Mississippi Museum of Art (601) 960-1515  www.msmuseumart.org THROUGH JUNE 22 SANTA FE, NM Terran Last Gun Hecho a Mano (505) 916-1341  www.hechoamano.org JULY 20 RAPID CITY, SD Native POP Main Street Square  www.nativepop.org JUNE 2-AUGUST 18 MINNEAPOLIS, MN Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists Minneapolis Institute of Art (888) 642-2787  www.artsmia.org JUNE 22-23 INDIANAPOLIS, IN Eiteljorg Indian Market Eiteljorg Museum (317) 636-9378  www.eiteljorg.org JUNE 7-9 OKLAHOMA CITY, OK Red Earth Festival Cox Convention Center (405) 427-5228  www.redearth.org JUNE 22-23 SANTA FE, NM Brian Lebel’s Cody Old West Show & Auction Santa Fe Community Convention Center (480) 779-9378  www.oldwestevents.com JUNE 15 SANTA FE, NM All-star Pueblo pottery demo with the Youngbloods, Toyas, and Russell Sanchez Lyn A. Fox Fine Pueblo…

Pottery making is a prayer, pottery making is creating life. Pottery, too, has profound significance; the creation of pottery is the combining of two sacred and fertile substances—water and earth—combining them to make a new life. Designs on pottery are neither iconographic, metaphoric nor symbolic but rather become the form that is painted—a leaf form is a leaf, a painted feather is prayer or breath. Painting infuses pottery with sacredness. These arts are visual prayer. Making pottery and painting is making life; those lives reside in the works that will be part of this exhibition. Pottery incorporates a myriad of ideas from ancient design iconography to new tools and materials. But at the core of pottery sits an accurate presenting of the values and principles of Pueblo cosmology. When we…

Susan Folwell comes from a long line of famed potters at Santa Clara Pueblo. She helped her mother, Jody Folwell, when she was young but chose to study design and photography at the Center of Creative Studies in Detroit, Michigan. Not finding the freedom she wanted, she returned to clay. Working from the Santa Clara tradition, she joined her mother and her sister Polly Rose Folwell in bringing the tradition into the 21st century with her innovative technique. The Harwood Museum of Art in Taos, New Mexico, will celebrate her achievements in the exhibition, Susan Folwell: Through the Looking Glass, July 5 through September 29 in the museum’s Studio 238 gallery. The museum notes, “Her work speaks to the contemporary confluence of Indian identity. While Folwell uses traditional clay and…

SANTA FE, NM In 2002 Harrison Begay posed for photographer Gary Auerbach, who also conducted a brief Q&A with the famous Navajo painter. “Having seen some pueblo ceremonial paintings by Fred Kabotie (Hopi), for the first time at the Santa Fe Art Museum, I became interested in painting,” Begay tells Auerbach. “In the year 1940, I began to study at the Santa Fe Indian Art School. The Santa Fe Indian Art School taught a lot of good Indian artists. Navajo, Apaches, Pueblos and other tribes learned Indian arts. Becoming well known are Allan Houser, Gerald Nailor, Ben Quintana, Joe Herrera, Quincy Tohoma and others. Art teacher, Dorothy Dunn (white woman) was a very good teacher and helped a great deal to promote Indian art, especially paintings. Now there are many…

FLAGSTAFF, AZ Painters, jewelers, weavers, printmakers, photographers, sculptors, fashion designers…to find this variety of artists you typically have to visit Santa Fe Indian Market, but on June 23 nine vastly unique artists will present new and old works at a new exhibition at the Museum of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff, Arizona. The show will celebrate the museum’s 90th anniversary by looking ahead at the next 90 years with artists whose works will remain important for new generations. The exhibition is titled Nine 4 Ninety: Artists for a New Era, and it will feature works from contemporary artists who each work in their own medium, style and discipline. The artists are Melissa Cody, a contemporary Navajo weaver and printmaker; Navajo fashion designer Orlando Dugi; Jason Garcia, a Santa Clara clay artist…

PHOENIX, AZ With more than 15,000 guests in attendance over two days, the Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair & Market boasted beautiful weather, exceptional sales and attentive visitors on March 2 and 3 in Phoenix. It all resulted in an enormously triumphant market hosted by the Heard Museum, one of the premier Native American museums in the country. “The 61st Indian Fair & Market was a huge success with attendance the highest in six years. We were thrilled with the quality and diversity of the art. Collectors were lined up at the gate awaiting the Saturday, 8:30 a.m. early-bird opening for museum members,” says Anna Flynn, chair for the annual event. “Many artists reported excellent sales. Audiences enjoyed music and dancing and children packed the storytelling and crafts events. We awarded…

CINCINNATI, OH The Collection of Harriet and Seymour Koenig, which they began assembling in the 1950s and 1960s when Seymour’s job led them to New Mexico, was a standout during Cowan’s Auctions’ April 5 sale of Native American and Western art. The group, featuring pottery, textiles, fine art and katsinas from the Southwest, accounted for more than $250,000 of the day’s $1.3 million sales total. The highest earning lot from the group was the third highest seller of the auction, a late-19th-century Zuni polychrome pottery olla (est. $4/6,000) that soared to $33,210. The olla, measuring over 12 by 14 inches, was painted with stylized rainbirds, birds with flowers in the beaks and crosshatched winged elements. “I was so happy to see collectors appreciate the Koenig Collection as much as I…

NATIVE AMERICAN ART ACTIVITY IS THRIVING IN Scottsdale, Arizona. Numerous collector-quality Navajo rugs and famous-artist gold jewelry have been placed in 2019. Main Street Indian art dealers are daily signaling a return of high-end collectors. Perhaps it’s the improved economy. Basketry continues to lag, although prime Apache specimens remain in high demand. Pueblo pottery, under tutelage of King Galleries, continues to thrive and reach new heights. How much better can pottery get besides larger and smaller, even micro? We think it will. Wall art in the Native American community is relatively sparse on Scottsdale gallery walls these days, except for Navajo textiles in vintage, traditional and contemporary motifs [which are] all selling well. Older Indian jewelry continues to draw collectors toward famous early 1900s silver masters like Juan de Dios…

Most contemporary Indian art collectors and curators are aware of the successful Pueblo pottery careers of Nampeyo, who created the Sikyatki Revival Art Movement at Hopi in the mid-1880s, and the later career of Maria Martinez and her husband Julian at San Ildefonso Pueblo. Yet most collectors view Nampeyo’s and the Martinezes’ careers as unrelated. After all, Nampeyo lived at remote Hopi in Arizona and Maria lived much later in New Mexico at San Ildefonso Pueblo, near Santa Fe. Yet despite the time and space between the artists, they share two important connections, one historic and the other aesthetic. In this new light, their careers reflect each other’s in important ways for understanding the development of Pueblo art pottery. As a collector and dealer of Pueblo pottery, I enjoy discovering…

In 1879, Col. James D. Stevenson, who was executive officer of the U.S. Geological Survey, headed west to research and collect Pueblo pottery with his wife, ethnologist Matilda Coxe Stevenson. Among the places that the couple traveled to was the Zuni Pueblo, where they discovered not only the traditional utilitarian vessels, but also animal effigies including pottery owls. The analyses and information on what they collected would be chronicled in the Bureau of Ethnology Annual Reports, bringing the knowledge of these items to all parts of the United States. The following year, the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway arrived in Albuquerque, New Mexico, making Pueblo pottery accessible to tourists, and these often humorous and small-scale owls captured the attention of buyers. Steve Elmore, owner of Steve Elmore Indian Art…

For thousands of years, Pueblo potters have been molding clay into vessels, cookware, tools and useable art. Take the National Museum of the American Indian for example—it houses Pueblo material dating back to as early as 500 B.C., recovered from caves in Grand Gulch, Utah. These clay creations serve as a window into the history of North America’s earliest inhabitants and, thanks to traditions and skills passed on from generation to generation, Pueblo pottery lives on. With an upsurge of interest in preserving and collecting the works, it’s easy to find examples of both early Native American pottery as well as authentic contemporary Pueblo pottery at museums, galleries and art markets throughout the country. Throughout this guide, you’ll find a comprehensive list of some of the freshest Native American pottery on…

CARTERSVILLE, GA Tony Abeyta, Shonto Begay, David Johns, Emmi Whitehorse, Baje Whitethorne Sr. and Larry Yazzie—six Navajo master artists come together for a major exhibition at the Booth Western Art Museum in Cartersville, Georgia. All living artists, these powerhouse names are the foundation of some of the most poignant and important Native American art today, both preserving traditions and pushing boundaries. Opening May 16, Six Navajo Masters: Abeyta, Begay, Johns, Whitehorse, Whitethorne & Yazzie showcases five to seven works from each artist, with some new pieces being created for the show and others that were made decades ago. “It’s exciting in that it’s got elements of a new show and elements of a retrospective at the same time,” says Seth Hopkins, Booth Museum executive director. The exhibition came into fruition after…

SANTA FE, NM After 2018’s successful first year in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Brian Lebel’s Old West Events will be returning to the famous Southwestern city on June 22 for the Cody Old West Show & Auction. Lebel’s shows are known for their vast array of materials related to the West, particularly Native American artworks and artifacts. Items such as beaded moccasins and cradleboards, silver and turquoise jewelry, Pueblo pottery, Navajo weavings and historic artifacts such as war shirts and weapons will be available at both the two-day dealer show on June 22 and 23, as well as the live auction starting at 5 p.m. on June 22. “It’s amazing the variety we see when it comes to our Native American materials,” Lebel says. “We see everything from historic to…

LOS ANGELES, CA More than 300 lots of fine Native American art are expected to come to market during Bonhams’ June 17 sale dedicated to the category. The highlight of the day will be items arriving from important estates, including nearly 100 pots from the Estate of Bertram J. Malenka, who along with his wife, Ruth, amassed a fine collection of historic Pueblo pots. There also will be other examples coming from the estate of Donna G. Rosenberg of Winnetka, Illinois. “I think as far as the market being what it is with historic pottery, there’s a little bit of something for everyone in terms of price points and types of pottery,” says Ingmārs Lindbergs, Bonhams’ director of Native American art. From the Malenka collection is a monumental blackware storage…

John P. Lukavic Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Native Arts Denver Art Museum Denver, CO (720) 865-5000 www.denverartmuseum.org What event (gallery show, museum exhibit, etc.) in the next few months are you looking forward to, and why? This is a particularly exciting time for exhibitions of American Indian arts. Six Indigenous artists are included in the 2019 Whitney Biennial, Minneapolis Institute of Art is opening a major traveling exhibition on Indigenous women, and the T.C. Cannon and Jeffrey Gibson exhibitions, as well as Crystal Bridges’ Art For a New Understanding, are soon coming to a close. I’m particularly excited to see the installation of two monumental paintings by Kent Monkman at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, debuting in December of 2019. Native artists are reaching new audiences and their work…

Woven clothing, baskets, and pottery vessels were all essential technologies that made the Ancestral Pueblo way of life possible, so it seems only natural that potters would have called attention to the unity of these various industries. In this article, we connect pottery and weaving with Pueblo philosophy and social history to explore deeper layers of meaning of isomeric design in Ancestral Pueblo culture. Philosophical concepts in contemporary Pueblo culture provide hints of the deeper significance of isomeric designs. Writings by Pueblo scholars, such as the late Rina Swentzell (1990), explain that Pueblo people conceive of reality as involving a spiritual world that is complementary and consubstantial with the physical world. In some communities this idea is expressed via the concept of water-wind-breath. Breath is the movement of air in…

Trinidad Medina (circa 1894-1969) of Zia Pueblo was the most celebrated potter of her time, demonstrating pottery making at venues across the country including the Century of Progress Exposition in Chicago in 1933. Today, her great grandson Marcellus Medina and his wife Elizabeth carry on the distinguished Zia artistic tradition. Marcellus continues to consult Trinidad’s sketchbook. His mother gave Elizabeth one of Trinidad’s polishing stones which she uses on her own pots. Elizabeth was born at Jemez Pueblo and, following tradition, moved to Zia when she married Marcellus. She had made pottery with her mother at Jemez. When she was accepted as a tribal member of Zia she was allowed to make the Pueblo’s traditional pottery, leaving behind all the Jemez traditions. She adopted Zia’s different style and learned to…

MINNEAPOLIS, MN In March of 2013 at the Heard Indian Market, Jill Ahlberg Yohe, then a curator at the Saint Louis Museum of Art, sat down in the booth of artist Teri Greeves and the two discussed something they had both noticed throughout their respective careers in Native art: specifically, while it is well-known that a majority of materials in museum collections across the country were made by women, neither could find any exhibitions that talked about this fact. The conversation sparked action and soon the two started laying the groundwork for what would eventually become Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists, an exhibition of 115 contemporary and historic works of art opening this month at the Minneapolis Institute of Art and then traveling to several other important venues across…

RAPID CITY, SD Packed with art, film, fashion, culture and more, Native POP: People of the Plains - A Gathering of Arts and Culture returns for its seventh year. The free day-long event takes place on July 20 from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. at Main Street Square in Rapid City, South Dakota. Not only does the gathering include a juried Native American fine art market focusing on Great Plains culture, but it also includes a notable cultural celebration featuring performances, demonstrations, culture bearers, Native fashion show, film showcase and evening concert. “Native POP is a terrific opportunity for Indigenous emerging and established artists to showcase their artwork,” says participating artist Joanne Brings Thunder. “The atmosphere is inspiring, inclusive and culturally appropriate. I appreciate the opportunity this show allows.” Among…

DALLAS, TX Incredible materials from all over North America, including some lots that stretch back two centuries, will be available to bidders on June 25 at Heritage Auctions’ Ethnographic Art: American Indian, Pre-Columbian and Tribal Auction in Dallas. Historic and contemporary pottery will play a major role in the sale, with as many as 120 pieces that will cross Heritage’s auction block. “The pottery is truly great. And we have pottery of all kinds. I’m still getting pieces in as we speak,” says ethnographic specialist Delia Sullivan. “We’ve had success with both historic and contemporary work, but this year’s contemporary offerings are really quite exciting, especially the Tony Da plate.” Da, the famous San Ildefonso potter who is the grandson of Maria and Julian Martinez, will be represented in the…