Indian Art In America

The magnificent art and decorative craftsmanship of the Indian tribes of North America appear in all of their colonial variety and complexity in this superb volume. Examples are included of the work of every major region in the areas now comprising the United States and Canada, of most of the numerically important or artistically pre-eminent tribes, and all of the major techniques employed by Indian artists. No reader of this book can long continue in a misapprehension of the stereotyped image of 'the Indian.' The varying cultures which developed on the North American continent - from the Eskimo hunters of the Arctic to the woodland League of the Iroquois, and from the Pueblo agriculturalists to the nomads of the Great Plains - are all represented. Each found its own ways of using available natural resources for utilitarian objects, for religious and ritual purposes, or for sheer aesthetic pleasure. The book abounds in beautiful examples of characteristics shell and quill work, pottery and weaving, deer and buffalo hide painting, carved stone pipes and tomahawks so commonly associated with Indian cultures. Less familiar are illustrations of mysterious stone effigy sculptures from the death-cults of the ancient Southeast; sophisticated carvings in stone and ivory from the Midwest; elaborate horse-trappings and costuming from the Great Plains; and a fascinating variety of masks. Dr. Dockstader draws upon a thorough knowledge of Indian life, custom and artistic tradition to relate this material to its sources in his introduction and in the extensive background comments accompanying each of the illustrations. He sees the art of the American Indian not as a subject for static sociological research, but as a living and continuing expression of a vital people, and he has included in this book a number of examples of recent and contemporary work by Indian artists. -- from dust jacket.

Discussing and illustrating the art forms of the Native Americans of North America, a comprehensive tour covers such areas as the Plains, the Southwest, California, the Great Basin and the Pacific Plateau, the Pacific Northwest Coast, the Arctic Coast, and the Woodlands.

Buggy Bear, who never takes a bath or washes his clothes, alienates the other animals in Miss Gator's school, until he falls in love with a classmate and decides to change his ways.

This landmark publication reevaluates historical Native American art as a crucial but under-examined component of American art history. The Charles and Valerie Diker Collection, a transformative promised gift to The Metropolitan Museum of Art, includes masterworks from more than fifty cultures across North America. The works highlighted in this volume span centuries, from before contact with European settlers to the early twentieth century. In this beautifully illustrated volume, featuring all new photography, the innovative visions of known and unknown makers are presented in a wide variety of forms, from painting, sculpture, and drawing to regalia, ceramics, and baskets. The book provides key insights into the art, culture, and daily life of culturally distinct Indigenous peoples along with critical and popular perceptions over time, revealing that to engage Native art is to reconsider the very meaning of America. p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Verdana}

As the Great Depression touched every corner of America, the New Deal promoted indigenous arts and crafts as a means of bootstrapping Native American peoples. But New Deal administrators' romanticization of indigenous artists predisposed them to favor pre-industrial forms rather than art that responded to contemporary markets. In A New Deal for Native Art, Jennifer McLerran reveals how positioning the native artist as a pre-modern Other served the goals of New Deal programs—and how this sometimes worked at cross-purposes with promoting native self-sufficiency. She describes federal policies of the 1930s and early 1940s that sought to generate an upscale market for Native American arts and crafts. And by unraveling the complex ways in which commodification was negotiated and the roles that producers, consumers, and New Deal administrators played in that process, she sheds new light on native art’s commodity status and the artist’s position as colonial subject. In this first book to address the ways in which New Deal Indian policy specifically advanced commodification and colonization, McLerran reviews its multi-pronged effort to improve the market for Indian art through the Indian Arts and Crafts Board, arts and crafts cooperatives, murals, museum exhibits, and Civilian Conservation Corps projects. Presenting nationwide case studies that demonstrate transcultural dynamics of production and reception, she argues for viewing Indian art as a commodity, as part of the national economy, and as part of national political trends and reform efforts. McLerran marks the contributions of key individuals, from John Collier and Rene d’Harnoncourt to Navajo artist Gerald Nailor, whose mural in the Navajo Nation Council House conveyed distinctly different messages to outsiders and tribal members. Featuring dozens of illustrations, A New Deal for Native Art offers a new look at the complexities of folk art “revivals” as it opens a new window on the Indian New Deal.

This catalogue includes 139 Native North American works of art that represent many peoples and a variety of materials and functions, presented here for their aesthetic value.-- Metropolitan Museum of Art website.

Artistic traditions of indigenous North America are explored in a study that draws on the testimonies of oral tradition, Native American history, and North American archaeology, focusing on the artists themselves and their cultural identities. Original.

Museums--along with books, newspapers, and Wild West shows in the 19th century, movies and television in the 20th--have shaped our perceptions of American Indians. This book brings together six prominent museum professionals--Native and non-Native--to examine the ways in which Indians and their cultures have been represented by museums in North America and to present new directions museums are already taking. Traditional museum exhibitions of Native American art and culture often represented only the past, ignoring the living Native voice. Today, museums have begun to incorporate Native perspectives in their displays. Even more dramatic is the growth in the number of Indian-run museums. These essays explore the relationships being forged between museums and Native communities to create new techniques for presenting Native American culture. This publication will serve to stimulate the discussions and analyses that can lead to new partnerships and collaborations.