“Stretching the Canvas: Ten Decades of Native Painting explores how Native artists challenged perceptions of what constituted art and what Native art could and should look like. Featuring more than 50 works by over 40 artists, this exhibition tells the story of how American Indian art expanded after World War I and how Native painters began to advocate for themselves in a world that often ignored their talent. Artists such as Fred Kabotie, Tonita Peña, and Stephen Mopope carved out space for painting at a time when Native art was often dismissed.
Later generations—including Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Kay WalkingStick, Fritz Scholder, James Lavadour, Jeffrey Gibson, Dyani White Hawk, and Athena LaTocha—expanded the field even further, embracing a wide range of approaches.
Over the span of ten decades, these artists and their work demonstrated the breadth, complexity, and continuing expansion of Native self-expression.” National Museum of the American Indian
SavvyCollector currently has two paintings by Jeffrey Gibson consistent with the example purchased by the Smithsonian’s Museum of the American Indian. Below is One Out titled and dated 2003, acrylic on paper. Next is Lasso, another acrylic on paper by Gibson also titled and dated 2003.
Over the last 25 plus years SavvyCollector has rehomed paintings by each of the more traditional artists as well as examples by Tony Abeyta, Jaune Quick-to-see Smith, Fritz Scholder and Dick West.
There will not be a catalogue for Stretching the Canvas, but a hearty review by John F. Ross appears in the Smithsonian’s publication and online.
Savvy collectors know the more you see, the better trained your eye is to identify “special” artworks.
Sad but true, Savvy Collector was lucky to have consigned 5 or 6 of Kay Walkingstick‘s canvases, her early non-objective works. Not one found a new home with our audience. Today those canvases, if you could locate one not already locked into an institution’s collection, would be priced more than 10 times greater.
Sincerely, Corinne Cain of SavvyCollector.com