In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Indigenous peoples of the Great Plains practiced an archival art--narrating war exploits in large-scale paintings executed on animal hide robes, shirts, tipi covers, and tipi liners. Essentially autobiographical, the paintings were worn and lived in by the men whose war exploits they portrayed, and were made to be "read" by the public at large. Executed in a pictorial narrative style and documenting actual events, these paintings blend visual art and history. Indigenous War Painting of the Plains is the first comprehensive look at this important North American art form, covering the full corpus of war paintings from fourteen tribes across the plains. Two impediments have previously made such a book impractical: photography alone falls short of rendering war paintings for the printed page, and only about half of the surviving works have reliable documentation on their cultural origins. Arni Brownstone surmounts these difficulties by producing precise electronic redrawings and by using well-documented paintings to inform poorly documented examples, bolstered by a careful examination of collection histories. Featuring some 300 photographs and electronic redrawings, the book focuses on 83 paintings organized into four chapters covering the paintings of tribes associated with a specific geographical sphere of artistic influence. Four appendixes feature paintings combined with "translations" by Indigenous collaborators who had intimate knowledge of the depicted events. Offering vivid access to the key works of war painting preserved in 37 museums throughout North America and Europe, Indigenous War Painting of the Plains illuminates distinctions between painting styles of different tribes, reveals how they influenced one another and changed over time, and conveys a deep understanding of how war painting developed in relation to profound social changes in Plains Indian cultures.

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Indigenous peoples of the Great Plains practiced an archival art—narrating war exploits in large-scale paintings executed on animal hide robes, shirts, tipi covers, and tipi liners. Essentially autobiographical, the paintings were worn and lived in by the men whose war exploits they portrayed, and were made to be “read” by the public at large. Executed in a pictorial narrative style and documenting actual events, these paintings blend visual art and history. Indigenous War Painting of the Plains is the first comprehensive look at this important North American art form, covering the full corpus of war paintings from fourteen tribes across the plains. Two impediments have previously made such a book impractical: photography alone falls short of rendering war paintings for the printed page, and only about half of the surviving works have reliable documentation on their cultural origins. Arni Brownstone surmounts these difficulties by producing precise electronic redrawings and by using well-documented paintings to inform poorly documented examples, bolstered by a careful examination of collection histories. Featuring some 300 photographs and electronic redrawings, the book focuses on 83 paintings organized into four chapters covering the paintings of tribes associated with a specific geographical sphere of artistic influence. Four appendixes feature paintings combined with “translations” by Indigenous collaborators who had intimate knowledge of the depicted events. Offering vivid access to the key works of war painting preserved in 37 museums throughout North America and Europe, Indigenous War Painting of the Plains illuminates distinctions between painting styles of different tribes, reveals how they influenced one another and changed over time, and conveys a deep understanding of how war painting developed in relation to profound social changes in Plains Indian cultures.

Presents an illustrated examination of the role of horses in Native American culture and history, providing information on the depiction of horses in tribal clothing, tools, and other objects.

This book makes available a unique set of little known hide paintings that offer valuable insights into one of the lesser-studied Plains Indian societies.

Attracted to the rich ceremonial life and unique architecture of the New Mexico pueblos, many early-twentieth-century artists depicted Pueblo peoples, places, and culture in paintings. These artists’ encounters with Pueblo Indians fostered their awareness of Native political struggles and led them to join with Pueblo communities to champion Indian rights. In this book, art historian Sascha T. Scott examines the ways in which non-Pueblo and Pueblo artists advocated for American Indian cultures by confronting some of the cultural, legal, and political issues of the day. Scott closely examines the work of five diverse artists, exploring how their art was shaped by and helped to shape Indian politics. She places the art within the context of the interwar period, 1915–30, a time when federal Indian policy shifted away from forced assimilation and toward preservation of Native cultures. Through careful analysis of paintings by Ernest L. Blumenschein, John Sloan, Marsden Hartley, and Awa Tsireh (Alfonso Roybal), Scott shows how their depictions of thriving Pueblo life and rituals promoted cultural preservation and challenged the pervasive romanticizing theme of the “vanishing Indian.” Georgia O’Keeffe’s images of Pueblo dances, which connect abstraction with lived experience, testify to the legacy of these political and aesthetic transformations. Scott makes use of anthropology, history, and indigenous studies in her art historical narrative. She is one of the first scholars to address varied responses to issues of cultural preservation by aesthetically and culturally diverse artists, including Pueblo painters. Beautifully designed, this book features nearly sixty artworks reproduced in full color.

"In this exhibition, you will discover objects produced by 135 artists; objects that offer an unprecedented view of the continuity of the aesthetic traditions of the Plains Indians, from the 16th to the 20th century."--Musée du quai Branly brochure.

"Wishart and the staff of the Center for Great Plains Studies have compiled a wide-ranging (pun intended) encyclopedia of this important region. Their objective was to 'give definition to a region that has traditionally been poorly defined,' and they have

Plains Indian biographic rock art can be “read” by those knowledgeable in its lexicon. Presented is a lexicon of imagery, conventions, and symbols used by Plains Indians to communicate their warfare and social narratives. The reader is introduced to Plains Indian “warrior” art in all media, biographic art as picture writing is explained, and the lexicon is described, providing a pictographic “dictionary,” and explains conventions and connotations. Finally, it illustrates four key examples of how these narratives are read by the observer. Familiarity with the lexicon will enable interested scholars and laypersons to understand what are otherwise enigmatic rock art drawings found from Calgary, Alberta through ten U.S. states, and into the Mexican state of Coahuila.

Pictures, painted and carved in caves and on open rock surfaces, are amongst our loveliest relics from prehistory. This pioneering set of sparkling essays goes beyond guesses as to what the pictures mean, instead exploring how we can reliably learn from rock-art as a material record of distant times: in short, rock-art as archaeology. Sometimes contact-period records offer some direct insight about indigenous meaning, so we can learn in that informed way. More often, we have no direct record, and instead have to use formal methods to learn from the evidence of the pictures themselves. The book's eighteen papers range wide in space and time, from the Palaeolithic of Europe to nineteenth-century Australia. Using varied approaches within the consistent framework of informed and proven methods, they make key advances in using the striking and reticent evidence of rock-art to archaeological benefit.

One of the most important collections of modern Native American art assembled by one individual, the James T. Bialac Native American Art Collection is an encyclopedic compilation of easel paintings and three-dimensional works. Showcased in this stunning catalogue, the collection comprises nearly four thousand items, including drawings, sculptures, prints, kachinas, jewelry, ceramics, rattles, baskets, and textiles. James T. Bialac began collecting art in the 1950s, when he was a student at the University of Arizona School of Law. It was then that he purchased the first of what would develop into a collection of more than one thousand kachina dolls. In 1964 he acquired his first painting, Robert Chee's Moccasin Game, and he went on to expand his collection to reflect the diversity of Native American art forms. Inspired by his connections with other collectors, Bialac learned the importance of documenting, cataloging, and preserving his collection. In 2010 he bequeathed the collection to the University of Oklahoma, where the art will be displayed at the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, as well as at other locations, including Bialac's native Arizona. The Bialac Collection represents indigenous cultures across North America, especially the Pueblos of the Southwest, Navajos, Hopis, and many of the tribes of the Great Plains. It encompasses such important and innovative artists as Fred Kabotie, Alfonso Roybal, Fritz Scholder, Joe Hilario Herrera, Allan Houser, Jerome Tiger, Tonita Peña, Helen Hardin, Pablita Velarde, George Morrison, Walter Richard "Dick" West, and Patrick DesJarlait, all of whose work is featured in this volume. Along with its rich sampling of works from the Bialac Collection, this catalogue offers informative essays by art historians, who draw on their areas of expertise to explain the significance of the artwork. The volume also features a foreword by David L. Boren, President of the University of Oklahoma, a preface by Ghislain d'Humières, Director of the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, and an introduction by Mary Jo Watson, Director of the School of Art and Art History. Published in cooperation with the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, University of Oklahoma