Tonita Peña, San Ildefonso Pueblo and American, 1893–1949; "Eagle Dance", c.1932–33; oil on beaverboard; 49 x 96 inches; (The William P. Healey Collection of Native American Art); © Estate of Tonita Peña
ST. LOUIS, Jan. 3, 2024—An upcoming exhibition at the Saint Louis Art Museum presents the intergenerational story of modern Native American art through drawings, paintings and sculptures by 53 artists from 25 Indigenous nations.
“Native American Art of the 20th Century: The William P. Healey Collection” opens with a public celebration featuring curator-led tours and a cash bar at 4 pm on Friday, Feb. 23. Located in Gallery 235 and the Sidney S. and Sadie M. Cohen Gallery 234, the free exhibition runs through July 14.
The exhibition celebrates a consequential gift from Jackson, Wyo.-based collector William P. Healey. Debuting a selection of 75 works from Healey, including recent gifts to the museum and promised gifts, the exhibition establishes a critical junction between the museum’s deep collection of historic Indigenous North American art and a growing emphasis on the contemporary.
“The Healey collection is extraordinary for its breadth, which includes many of the leading Native American painters and sculptors of the 20th century,” said Alexander Brier Marr, the associate curator of Native American art. “Bill Healey’s promised gift beautifully dovetails with, and critically strengthens, the museum’s interest in Native American art. As contemporary Indigenous art garners increasing visibility across the country, the under-examined story of Native modernism gains new significance by affirming Indigenous artistic continuity.”
Beginning in the 1920s, artists such as Fred Kabotie, Tonita Peña and Carl Sweezy established professional careers as easel painters in New Mexico and Oklahoma. These self-taught artists developed a mode of figuration that garnered early recognition from fine arts institutions. Watercolors featured dancers, animals and everday scenes, often set on a groundless page. Peña’s “Eagle Dance,” a rare mural panel by the sole woman in this generation, demonstrates key principles of modern Native painting.
By the 1930s, instructors taught this figural style to students at the Santa Fe Indian School including Pablita Velarde, Andrew Tsinahjinnie and Gerald Nailor. Simultaneously in Oklahoma, Bacone College offered a fine art program led by a series of influential directors, including Acee Blue Eagle, Woody Crumbo and Dick West. The exhibition reflects the generational legacies of these academic movements, including a chronological series of paintings by Allan Houser, who studied at the Santa Fe Indian School and taught at its successor, the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA).
The exhibition also charts significant changes to Native studio art following World War II. In 1962, the founding of the IAIA in Santa Fe helped expand the range of practices, bringing the field in direct conversation with mainstream styles and media. The exhibition showcases leading IAIA artists Fritz Scholder, Linda Lomahaftewa and T. C. Cannon. Additional contemporary artists in the exhibition include John Hoover, Rick Bartow, David Bradley and Tony Abeyta, who is co-curating SLAM’s presentation with Marr.
A printed brochure and a series of programs will accompany the exhibition. Visit slam.org for more information.
CONTACT: Molly Morris, 314.655.5250, molly.morris@slam.org
