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Richard Hunt (Kwakwaka’wakw), Sea Monster Mask, 1999, red cedar with pigment and metal. Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, inv. no. YPM ANT.256928. © Richard Hunt. Courtesy Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History.

Indigenous voices
New Haven, CT
On view through June 21, Place, Nations, Generations, Beings: 200 Years of Indigenous North American Art at Yale University Art Gallery represents a wide range of Indigenous voices with more than 75 artworks dating from the early 19th century to the present. A student-curated exhibition, the show features works in basketry, beadwork, drawings, photography, pottery, textiles, and wood carving by prominent artists like Maria Martinez (San Ildefonso), Marie Watt (Seneca) and Will Wilson (Navajo), among others.

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Woodrow Crumbo (Pottawatomie, 1912-1989), Buffalo Hunt (color study for mural, East Wall, Recreation Room, Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C.), 1939, gouache on paper

Buffalo Exhibition
Washington, DC
Picturing the American Buffalo: George Catlin and Modern Native American Artists features works by Catlin and modern Native artists exploring the significance and symbolism behind the American buffalo. Catlin’s time spent in America during the 19th century offers insight into the customs and traditions of Native peoples he encountered on his journeys and his efforts to try and preserve images of the buffalo before he feared they would vanish. The two perspectives of modern and antique art offer significant insight into how art preserves history. Artwork in this exhibition will be on display through April 12, 2020 at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

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Cherokee and Mississippi Band of Choctaw artist Jeffrey Gibson. John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Courtesy John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Jeffrey Gibson receives MacArthur Fellowship
Chicago, IL
The recipients of the 2019 MacArthur Fellowship—a $625,000 award gifted by the MacArthur Foundation to creative individuals of immense talent as an investment in their potential—were recently announced. Six of these fellows were artists, one of whom is Native visual artist Jeffrey Gibson (Cherokee/Mississippi Band of Choctaw). A multi-disciplinary artist, Gibson’s artwork includes garments and sculptural objects as well as paintings and technically demanding handwork using materials like beads, metal jingles, fringe and elk hide.

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Author George R.R. Martin with IAIA students. Photo by Jason S. Ordaz. Courtesy IAIA.

George R.R. Martin Scholarships
Santa Fe, NM
The first-ever recipients of the George R.R. Martin Scholarship were announced at the Institute of American Indian Arts during its annual IAIA Scholarship Dinner and Auction held in August. The landmark award seeks to support the Santa Fe film community and encourage students working in the field of cinematic arts. All recipients were IAIA students. The $15,000 ”Master Storyteller” scholarship was awarded to Jordana Bass (Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska), the $5,000 “Proven Storyteller” scholarship to Carrie Dada (Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma), and the $5,000 “Newcomer” scholarship to Adensunset Levy.

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Kathleen Wall (Jemez), The Basket Maker, acrylic on wood panel with mounted traditional clay figurine; figure made with traditionally processed Jemez clay, painted with slip, underglazes and acrylic paint. Courtesy Museum of Indian Arts & Culture.

Kathleen Wall, 2019 Native Treasure Living Treasure recipient. Photograph by Penny Singer. Courtesy Penny Singer.

2020 Living Treasure
Santa Fe, NM
The Museum of Indian Arts and Culture has announced that Jemez Pueblo potter Kathleen Wall is the 2020 recipient of the Native Treasures Living Treasures award, which honors Native American artists who have made outstanding artistic contributions to the field of Indigenous arts and culture. Wall’s work with Native clay has a strong connection to her heritage and family members, following in the footsteps of her mother, Fannie Loretto and aunts Dorothy Trujillo, Mary Toya, Edna Coriz and Alma Concha.

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Song of the Sea
Rapid City, SD
The Indian Arts and Crafts Board and Sioux Indian Museum are hosting a special exhibition featuring artwork from Alaska Native carvers Edwin Noongwook, Ike Kulowiyi and Ben Pungowiyi, titled Song of the Sea: Carvings of St. Lawrence Island. Home to the Yupik people, St. Lawrence Island, Alaska, is known for its thousands of years of tradition in ivory and bone carving. The exhibition runs through January 20, 2020, and is free and open to the public.

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Dr. Denene De Quintal, assistant curator of Native American art in the Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania and Indigenous Americas at the Detroit Institute of Arts.

Detroit Institute of Arts names new assistant curator
Detroit, MI
Denene De Quintal is the new assistant curator of Native American art in the Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania and Indigenous Americas at the Detroit Institute of Arts. De Quintal earned a bachelor’s degree in cultural anthropology with concentrations in Native American studies and Latin American studies at Cornell University, then attained her MA and Ph.D. at the University of Chicago in cultural anthropology. She comes to the institute with years of experience, most recently having spent two years as the inaugural Andrew W. Mellon Post-Doctoral Curatorial Fellow in Native Arts at the Denver Art Museum.

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Red Planet Books and Comics founder Dr. Lee Francis 4, left, and UNM Press director Stephen Hull.

Publishing partnership showcases Native authors and illustrators
Albuquerque, NM
The University of New Mexico Press and Red Planet Books and Comics have partnered to launch a book series featuring graphic novels and graphic nonfiction by Native American writers and illustrators. “Our partnership with Red Planet Books and Comics will be a laboratory for cutting edge, creative work by Native American writers and artists, bearing on the Indigenous experience,” says Stephen Hull, director of UNM Press. The Memorial Ride by author Stephen Graham Jones (Blackfeet) is set to be the inaugural publication of the series. “This is such an exciting venture for Red Planet...With the incredible history of [UNM] Press and its many publications by Native writers, I think this is a perfect collaboration that will bring so many great works to life,” says Red Planet Books and Comics founder Dr. Lee Francis 4. —