Installation image of Jaune Quick-to-see-Smith
Jaune Quick-to-See Smith
May 3, 2024–August 3, 2025- Location
- Gallery 258
The exhibition highlights Jaune Quick-to-See Smith’s works from the Museum collection. As one of the most celebrated contemporary artists of Indigenous heritage, this exhibition spans Smith’s career and draws attention to her work in St. Louis.
Across four decades and multiple media, Smith developed a singular vision in contemporary art. Deploying a fragmentary aesthetic that layers text, found imagery, and the artist’s gestural brushstrokes, Smith advanced Indigenous perspectives on land, history, and art.
The exhibition marks the SLAM debut for State Names Map: Cahokia and Trade Canoe: Cahokia, a recent painting and sculpture Smith created in 2023 for the Counterpublic triennial in St. Louis. Based on two of her long-running series, the painting and sculpture respond to deep histories of cross-cultural trade and Indigenous displacement associated with the St. Louis region. Early pastels by Smith and a series of prints from the mid-1990s, many of which the artist made in St. Louis at Washington University’s Island Press, provide a long view of the artist’s career.
Jaune Quick-to-See Smith is curated by Alexander Brier Marr, associate curator for Native American art.
Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Enrolled Salish, Confederated Salish and Kootenai Nation, MT, 1940–2025; State Names Map: Cahokia, and Trade Canoe: Cahokia, 2023; Saint Louis Art Museum, The Siteman Contemporary Art Fund, and funds given by Barbara and Andy Taylor,The Werner Family, John and Susan Horseman, Christine Taylor-Broughton and Lee Broughton, Nancy and Kenneth Kranzberg, Pam and Greg Trapp, Mr. and Mrs. Gary Wolff, Dottie and Kent Kreh, Dwyer Brown and Nancy Reynolds, Suzy Besnia and Vic Richey, Clare M. Davis and David S. Obedin, Yvette Drury and John Paul Dubinsky, Judith Weiss Levy, Mr. and Mrs. Charles A. Lowenhaupt, and Mary Ann and Andy Srenco; © Jaune Quick-To-See Smith, Courtesy of the artist and Garth Greenan Gallery, New York; Image courtesy of Counterpublic, Photograph by Jon Gitchoff