This exhibition examines the individuals, communities and institutions central to elevating printmaking as a medium among Native American artists during the second half of the 20th century.
As a nontraditional art form among Indigenous artists, print- making has continually offered a dynamic means of modernist experimentation, communal engagement and social commen- tary. The exhibition provides an overview of this history, while also considering concepts like ritual, gender, humor, power, memory, dispossession and exile. Such themes are especially well suited to this paper-based medium. As Choctaw/Chickasaw art historian heather ahtone notes, Native printmakers took up paper — the material that Western legal culture used to dis- possess tribes of rights, lands and languages — as a means of survivance, sustaining native stories and renouncing narratives of domination or tragedy. “Collective Impressions” features an influential group of In - digenous artists, from some of the earliest to engage with the medium, like Awa Tsireh and Gerald Nailor, to a group of more humorous and satirical artists, like Fritz Scholder, T.C. Cannon and Jaune Quick-to-See Smith. The exhibition also highlights a large number of Cherokee, Muscogee (Creek) and Yuchi artists, including Bobby C. Martin, America Meredith, Kay WalkingStick and Richard Ray Whitman, whose works address history, mem- ory and belonging. These are crucial questions for the Georgia Museum of Art, given that our university and museum stand on the ancestral homelands of these tribes.
Curator: Jeffrey Richmond-Moll, curator of American art Sponsors: The W. Newton Morris Charitable Foundation, the Friends of the Georgia Museum of Art and the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts
Awa Tsireh (San Ildefonso Pueblo, 1898 – 1955), “The Great Winter Hunters or Deer Dance of the Rio Grande Pueblos,” n.d. Pochoir, 14 11/16 x 19 5/6 inches. Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, The University of Oklahoma Norman, The James T. Bialac Native American Art Collection, 2010, 2010.023.1673. Gerald Nailor, called Toh Yah (Navajo, 1917 – 1952), “Navajo Woman on Horseback,” 1950. Screenprint, 16 1/2 x 15 inches. Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, The University of Oklahoma Norman, The James T. Bialac Native American Art Collection, 2010, 2010.023.1343. Fritz Scholder (Luiseño, 1937 – 2005), “Dancers at Zuni,” 1978. Lithograph, 22 × 30 inches (sheet). Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, The University of Oklahoma Norman, The James T. Bialac Native American Art Collection, 2010, 2010.023.1797.
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