Coyote And Crow Story, 2014
Rick Bartow
Wiyot, Mad River Band, 1946–2016, Acrylic and graphite on canvas, Gift of Loren G. Lipson, M.D., Crocker Art Museum 2019.29 (Photo by Jesse A. Bravo)
Rick Bartow was a musician and artist who lived most of his life in Oregon. Late in his life, he became involved in the World Renewal ceremonies of his ancestral community. The Wiyot tribe live in the Humboldt Bay region of Northwestern California. This semi-abstract painting depicts a long-legged, humanoid bird and the interconnected forms of a coyote and human figure. These forms remind us that American Indian animal stories often include insights about human behavior, told through the exploits of animals, and that these stories sometimes feature dramatic visions of shape-shifting transformation.
Native artists draw from a variety of sources when creating their work, including designs and imagery from their cultural traditions. These reinterpretations of forms tend to provide a vibrancy and electricity to motifs that are often centuries old. For the viewer, these works feel both old and new, historic yet contemporary. Although many of the designs are embedded with stories and symbolism, they can evoke an Indigenous world view of connection to the earth, life forms, and the Ancestors.
I is for Indian as I is for Informational (Cultural) Transfer, 1994
George Longfish
Seneca/Tuscarora, Born 1942, Mixed media on paper, Crocker Art Museum, gift of Carla Hills, 1998.14.1 (Photo by Jesse A. Bravo)
In this mixed media collage, the colorful image of a newborn humorously wearing sunglasses stands in stark contrast to a dark 19th-century formal portrait of a Native American in ceremonial dress. The phrase, “The Only Good Indian Is a Dead Indian or an Invisible One,” is a variation of a remark first attributed to General Philip Sheridan in 1868. These words were reiterated in 1886 by future president Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt regularly disparaged Indians and did not believe them to be equal to whites.
Although born on a First Nation Reserve in Canada and educated at the Art Institute of Chicago, George Longfish began an influential tenure at the University of California, Davis, as curator of its C. N. Gorman Museum in 1973. Under his leadership, it became one of California’s most dynamic centers for contemporary Native art.
Basket, 2013
Chumash, Born 1948, Coiled horsehair decorated with beads; shells; bingo markers; parts of credit and debit cards, Donated by Monica Jane Wyatt to the Southwest Museum of the American Indian Collection, Autry Museum of the American West, 2013.27.1
Among the best-known art forms of California Indians are baskets. These include the elegant woven caps, sometimes adorned with feathers and dentalium shells, worn in Northwestern California’s Klamath River watershed ceremonies. In this work, Linda Aguilar has reinvented basket weaving for a contemporary context. Her sculptural basket references the forms of ceremonial basket caps, but also includes nontraditional adornments—such as bingo markers—that remind us of more recent community traditions. Aguilar’s materials also include cut-up pieces of a credit card with a visible VISA logo and 3-digit security code. By referencing today’s commercial banking and credit markets, the artist contrasts contemporary notions of material wealth with the ceremonial and spiritual wealth of the Ancestors.
Tobacco Basket, 1985
George Blake
Hupa/Yurok, Born 1944, Stoneware, Gift of Paula Kirkeby, Crocker Art Museum, 2011.69.1 (Photo by Jesse A. Bravo)
Inner World, 1989
Dalbert Castro
Nisenan, Born 1934, Acrylic on canvas, Private collection (Photo by Josh Tousey)
This painting takes its form from a flicker (sometimes called “yellow hammer”) feather headdress, an important part of dance regalia for Maidu tribes. The flicker’s black-tipped tail feathers are used for the pointed edges of the headdress, and its orange-hued wing feathers are sewn together to create the solid orange band. The abstract inward spiral suggests that the dancer’s focus is on an interior world of prayer, spiritual inspiration, and heritage.
A Dancing Cape, 1987
Frank Tuttle
Yuki/Wailaki/Konkow Maidu, Born 1957, Mixed media on Rives BFK paper, Museum purchase with funds from Kathleen Kelly, Crocker Art Museum, 1987.5 (Photo by Jesse A. Bravo)
This abstract painting depicts feathers sewn onto a ceremonial cape. Used in the dances of several Northern California tribes, these capes accentuate the movement of the dancer and allow for feathers to flutter and shift. At the top edge of the painting, there is a suggestion of a feathered headdress, which is also an element of Maidu regalia. This focus on regalia instead of a figure suggests the primacy of tradition and ceremonial life of the community over the individual.
Untitled, 2009
Leatrice Mikkelsen
Dineh (Navajo)/Wyandotte, 1937–2016, Mixed media; ink; and watercolor on natural fiber paper, Courtesy of Jessica Munton and Hadezbah Kuimelis
This abstract work is painted primarily in sumi ink on stained paper. Although born on a Native American reservation in Oregon, Mikkelsen spent some of her youth in the Southwest and attended school inside a Japanese internment camp at the Poston Relocation Center in Arizona. There, she was introduced to ink painting by artists/teachers who had been interned. She later commented on the irony that as an American Indian she was free to leave camp after school, unlike the Japanese prisoners who were confined to camp until the end of World War II.
Mikkelsen regularly used ink throughout her career, acknowledging the inspiration of her early training. She was also a curator at the American Indian Historical Society in San Francisco in the late 1960s.
Coyote And Crow Story, 2014
Rick Bartow
Wiyot, Mad River Band, 1946–2016, Acrylic and graphite on canvas, Gift of Loren G. Lipson, M.D., Crocker Art Museum 2019.29 (Photo by Jesse A. Bravo)
Rick Bartow was a musician and artist who lived most of his life in Oregon. Late in his life, he became involved in the World Renewal ceremonies of his ancestral community. The Wiyot tribe live in the Humboldt Bay region of Northwestern California. This semi-abstract painting depicts a long-legged, humanoid bird and the interconnected forms of a coyote and human figure. These forms remind us that American Indian animal stories often include insights about human behavior, told through the exploits of animals, and that these stories sometimes feature dramatic visions of shape-shifting transformation.
When I Remember I See Red: American Indian Art and Activism in California was organized by the Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA, with support from the United Auburn Indian Community. This presentation at the Autry has been made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this exhibition do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
The Autry Museum of the American West acknowledges the Gabrielino/Tongva peoples as the traditional land caretakers of Tovaangar (the Los Angeles basin and So. Channel Islands). We recognize that the Autry Museum and its campuses are located on the traditional lands of Gabrielino/Tongva peoples and we pay our respects to the Honuukvetam (Ancestors), ‘Ahiihirom (Elders) and ‘Eyoohiinkem (our relatives/relations) past, present and emerging.
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