Through July 11, 2027 | Phoenix Art Museum | Phoenix, AZ

A Deeper Story

The Phoenix Art Museum is currently hosting an exhibition surrounding a major acquisition of more than 185 works by Native American artists.

The Phoenix Art Museum recently received a monumental gift of nearly 200 modern and contemporary Native American artwork to strengthen its Art of the Americas Collection. The 185-work gift comes from the William P. Healey Collection of Native American Art, marking the single largest gift of Indigenous art to the museum in its 65-year history. In celebration of this major acquisition is the exhibition The Way We Came: A Century of Indigenous Art from The William P. Healey Collection at Phoenix Art Museum, featuring more than 70 works from the collection from artists like Douglas Miles, Emmi Whitehorse, Del Curfman, Cara Romero, Kay WalkingStick, Blackbear Bosin as well as Tony Abeyta, who curated the exhibition alongside JoAnna Reyes.

Oscar Howe (Yanktonai, 1915-1983), The Medicine Dancer, ca. 1965, casein on paper, 289/16 x 2113/16 in. William P. Healey Collection of Native American Art at Phoenix Art Museum, Gift of William P. Healey. © by permission, OSCAR HOWE ART LLC.

Cara Romero (Chemehuevi), Fawn, 2025, archival pigment print on Legacy Platine Paper, 51 x 43 in. William P. Healey Collection of Native American Art at Phoenix Art Museum, Gift of William P. Healey. © Cara Romero. Image courtesy the artist.

“The addition of these 185 works allows us to tell a much fuller story of the art of the Americas and, importantly, illuminate the often-untold impact of Native artists on modern and contemporary art more broadly,” says Jeremy Mikolajczak, director and CEO of the Phoenix Art Museum. “As a museum in the American Southwest with a significant collection of art from across the Americas, we have a responsibility to recognize the ways Indigenous histories, perspectives and creative practices are essential to understanding the past and present identity of Arizona and the Americas at large.”

Among the highlights that visitors should keep in their sights is a watercolor from around 1915 by Absentee Shawnee artist Ernest Spybuck, titled Shawnee Gathering. “[This painting] is an exceptional early 20th-century work in the Healey Collection,” says Abeyta. “It vividly captures a Shawnee social dance within an Oklahoma landscape, depicting various relocated tribes intermingling alongside white spectators. Created in the first quarter of the century, the painting reflects the climate of forced removal to Indian Territory—where displaced Eastern tribes like the Shawnee, originally from the Ohio valley, maintained their songs and ceremonies in a new environment. This composition serves as an important narrative of intertribal interaction and historical persistence, highlighting cultural traditions that many tribes continue to preserve in Oklahoma today.”

Ernest Spybuck (Shawnee, 1883-1949), Shawnee Gathering, ca. 1915, watercolor on paper, 18¼ x 25 in. William P. Healey Collection of Native American Art at Phoenix Art Museum, Gift of William P. Healey.

Del Curfman (Crow), Untitled, 2015-2017, oil on canvas, 16 x 20 in. William P. Healey. Collection of Native American Art at Phoenix Art Museum, Gift of William P. Healey. Photo by Davin Lavikka.

Reyes, adjunct curator at the Phoenix Art Museum, cites The Medicine Dancer by Oscar Howe as another standout in the show. “Howe is known for his role in challenging preconceived notions of what Native American art should look like. This painting is a gorgeous example of his mature style,” she says. “Created during the 1960s, Medicine Dancer shows a beautiful coming together of Native American cosmology and expressive figuration, all depicted in the contemporaneous visual language of a psychedelic graphic sensibility. The painting depicts a man who appears to be falling underwater. He wears a red loincloth and is grasping an eel in one hand which he is looking at intently. Howe inserts numerous details that lend motion and interest to the image, including feather fishing lures that are attached to the man’s body and fishing weights which are attached to the eel’s body. The man’s hair floats up around him, showcasing Howe’s fine line work, and adding an additional sense of dynamism.”

The Way We Came: A Century of Indigenous Art from The William P. Healey Collection at Phoenix Art Museum will be on view through July 11, 2027.

Emmi Whitehorse (Navajo), #817 “Naked”, ca. 1990, mixed media on paper, mounted to canvas., 511/8 x 39½ in. William P. Healey Collection of Native American Art at Phoenix Art Museum, Gift of William P. Healey. Courtesy the artist and Garth Greenan Gallery, New York.

Kay WalkingStick (Cherokee Nation), Winter Passage, December 2017, oil on panel, 36 x 72 x 2 in. William P. Healey Collection of Native American Art at Phoenix Art Museum, Gift of William P. Healey. Image courtesy the artist and Hales London and New York. © Kay WalkingStick. Photography by JSP Art Photography.

“We intend to build on this collection through continued acquisitions, while ensuring that Native communities are part of the conversation around how these works are collected, interpreted and cared for,” Mikolajczak adds. “Those relationships and opportunities for co-stewardship will be essential to ensuring these artworks are presented with intentionality and respect.” —

Through July 11, 2027
Phoenix Art Museum
1625 N. Central Avenue, Phoenix, AZ 85004 (602) 257-1880, www.phxart.org