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The contemporary Native American fine art sculpture tradition is
relatively new, with the artistic style of Allan Houser dominating its
short history. This history is less than one hundred years old. The
purpose of this exhibition is to feature the leaders of this fine art
form as well as, to demonstrate the diversity of style and cultural
context among the artists.
The end of the 1800s brought tremendous change to the Indian Nations
within the United States. It marked the end of the Indian wars and the
beginning of the Reservation period in American history. A large number
of culturally diverse tribes from the various regions of the United
States were relocated to "Indian Territory." This region was to become
the state of Oklahoma. This large concentration of Indian populations
within Oklahoma made the state one of the main centers for growth and
development of American Indian arts and crafts. Historically, the
Southwest and California were also regions that had equally large
populations of Indian people. Today these three areas are the leaders in
the promotion and appreciation of Native art.
The late 1930s and early 1940s marked a change in direction in Indian
education. Two official special art programs, one at the University of
Oklahoma and one at the Santa Fe Indian School were developed to
encourage and nurture the growth of Indian painting as well as the
traditional arts. Out of these programs, the leaders in the Native
American Fine Art Movement emerged. The late 1930s and early 1940s also
saw a growing interest by collectors and promoters of Indian art in the
small wood carvings being produced by Native artists.
In the first half of the 1900s, museums were developing and growing in
number within the United States, dedicated to collecting and exhibiting
American Indian cultural materials. The number of collectors/enthusiasts
of Native American cultural arts was also growing. Many of these collectors
developed their own institutions such as the Thomas Gilcrease Museum of
American and Western Art in Tulsa, Oklahoma and The Heard Museum in
Phoenix, Arizona founded by Dwight and Maie Heard. Others donated
their collections to institutions like the Wheelwright Museum of the
American Indian in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
However, historically very few national fine art institutions have
collected Indian art and even fewer have collected contemporary Native
American fine art. The reasons for this are complex and involve the
academic discipline of anthropology, issues of economic development,
intervention by the Federal government and the politics of fine art
museums. To further complicate the equation, very few Native artists
work in the fine art tradition and even fewer work in the sculpture
tradition of stone and bronze. Only a handful have explored
the realm of monumental sculpture. All of these factors contribute to
the reality that very few Native American artists are represented in
national sculpture gardens or in the collections of fine art
institutions. The challenge is to have this little known American
art form recognized and acknowledged. This exhibition, Twentieth Century
American Sculpture at The White House: Honoring Native America, is a
milestone in the history of the Native American Fine Art Movement.
Margaret Archuleta
Curator of Fine Art
The Heard Museum, Phoenix, Arizona
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