Kategoria BISAC: Art >> Indigenous Art of the Americas

Although Franz Boas--one of the most influential anthropologists of the twentieth century--is best known for his voluminous writings on cultural, physical, and linguistic anthropology, he is also recognized for breaking new ground in the study of so-called primitive art. His writings on art have major historical value because they embody a profound change in art history.

Nineteenth-century scholars assumed that all art lay on a continuum from primitive to advanced: artworks of all nonliterate peoples were therefore examples of early stages of development. But Boas's case studies from...

Colorfully beaded handbags, superbly tanned and decorated deerskin shirts, finely woven baskets, exquisitely beaded and fringed horse trappings -- these distinctive Native arts of the Columbia River Plateau have been overshadowed in the public eye by the arts of the Northwest Coast, Great Plains, and American Southwest. But Indians in the region where present-day Washington, Oregon, and Idaho share boundaries have for centuries combined function and beauty in the items they made for even the most mundane of uses, and their traditional arts are still vital today.

This book brings...

Understanding Northwest Coast Art is a handy, dictionary-style reference guide to identifying and understanding the symbols, crests, and beings depicted in Northwest Coast Native American works of art such as totem poles, masks, and prints.

The first section of the book features an alphabetical list of words relating to Northwest Coast art, with definitions, descriptions, and explanations and synopses of the major myths associated with them. As an aid to identification and understanding, many of the crests, beings, and symbols are illustrated in 70 reproductions of...

The Plains region that stretches from northern Colorado to southern Alberta and from the Rockies to the western Dakotas is the land of the Cheyenne and the Blackfeet, the Crow and the Sioux. Its rolling grasslands and river valleys have nurtured human cultures for thousands of years. On cave walls, glacial boulders, and riverside cliffs, native people recorded their ceremonies, vision quests, battles, and daily activities in the petroglyphs and pictographs they incised, pecked, or painted onto the stone surfaces.

In this vast landscape, some rock art sites were clearly intended for...

Path Breakers is the third volume--following After the Storm--in a biennial series that brings the work of Native American fine artists to greater public attention. As Lucy Lippard writes in her introduction, the artists honored are "a wildly diverse and inventive lot." Paintings, prints, photographs, sculpture, and installation pieces of variety, color, and power abound. Even a quick examination demonstrates Lippard's contention that "the infinitely various ways of negotiating cultural space are apparent in contemporary Native art."

The 2003 Eiteljorg Fellowhip for Native...

Bill Reid's work has long been acknowledged for its astute and eloquent analysis of Haida tradition, and for the paradox of making modern art from the old Haida stories. It helped to make the so-called renaissance of Northwest Coast Native art visible to all. Bill Reid and Beyond pays Reid the compliment of expanding on his own clear-eyed self-scrutiny as he came to stand for Native art and artists, more perhaps than he would have wished.

The book's nineteen contributors write from many perspectives, breaking down boundaries between art history and anthropology, between...

The Lewis and Clark expedition holds an unrivaled position in the American imagination. Over the course of two hundred years, the expedition has become one of the primary symbols of American identity: rugged individuals conquering the entire breadth of a continent and defining a new nation. This book reevaluates the expedition and its impact on American culture. Following the spirit of intense documentation in the journals of Lewis and Clark, it presents a visual journal of recent art that examines the increasingly complex relationship between the land and contemporary culture. Mainstream...

Let's Walk West presents recent work by Brad Kahlhamer, an Arizona-born, New York-based artist and musician. It includes large-scale watercolor-and-ink paintings, texts excerpted from his journals and song lyrics, working photographs, and preliminary studies, along with a selection of nineteenth-century Plains Indian ledger drawings selected by Kahlhamer from the collection of the Heard Museum in Phoenix.

Let's Walk West looks at Kahlhamer's rambling journey into his Native American heritage and the landscape of the West. He was born in Tucson in 1956 of Native American...

By carving, weaving, and painting their stories into ceremonial and utilitarian objects, Coast Salish artists render tangible the words and ideas that have been the architecture of this remarkable Pacific Northwest Coast culture. The Coast Salish tribes have developed a culture that was and still is shared orally, steeped in the ritual and beauty of storytelling and mythology. Infused with centuries of sacred teaching, these accounts hold the secrets to the spiritual, political, social, and economic well-being of tribal life. As a testament to their cultural resilience, increasing numbers...

This is the fourth in a biennial series of exhibitions and supporting catalogues begun in 1999 to bring the work of Native American fine artists to greater public attention.

Following the pattern established at its inception, the 2005 Eiteljorg Fellowship honors one distinguished artist and five fellows. This year, the distinguished artist is sculptor John Hoover (Aleut). The fellows are painter Harry Fonseca (Maidu), painter James Lavadour (Walla Walla), sculptor and installation artist C. Maxx Stevens (Seminole/Muskogee), mixed media artist Tanis Maria S'eiltin (Tlingit), and...

The story of the Native peoples of the Great Plains--including the Arapaho, Cheyenne, Lakota, Shoshone, Blackfeet, Kiowa, Pawnee, Arikara, Gros Ventre, Assiniboine, Mandan, Hidatsa, and Crow tribes-- is integral to the history and heritage of the American West. These buffalo-hunting and horticultural people once dominated the vast open region of the Great Plains, west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains, that stretches from present-day Canada to Texas.

The Native people of the Plains found this vast, harsh land rich in resources, with tall grass prairies abundant...

Art of the Northwest Coast is a comprehensive survey of the Native arts of the Pacific Northwest Coast, from Puget Sound to Alaska and from prehistoric times to the present. Incorporating the region's social history with the observations of anthropologists, historians of art, and Native peoples, this groundbreaking volume examines how the upheavals of European contact affected the development of a powerful traditional art. By exploring the distinct origins of each of the area's linguistic groups and their histories, mythologies, and art forms, art historian Aldona Jonaitis reveals...

With such words, Kiowa and Comanche people express their deep connection to their traditional lattice cradles. Prevalent from 1870 to 1930, these cradles represented a unique, yet extremely practical, art form. These "gifts of pride and love" reflected close networks, which remained intact despite the difficult transition to reservation life, new religions, government boarding schools, and allotment of tribal lands.

This book, a beautiful homage to the artisans who crafted cradleboards, includes a history of the origins of lattice cradles as well as essays by eleven descendants of...

Miskwabik, Metal of Ritual examines the thousands of beautiful and intricate ritual works of art -- from ceremonial weaponry to delicate copper pendants and ear ornaments -- created in eastern North America before the arrival of Europeans. The first comprehensive examination of this 3,000-year-old metallurgical tradition, the book provides unique insight into the motivation of the artisans and the significance of these objects, and highlights the brilliance and sophistication of the early civilizations of the Americas.Comparing the ritual architecture and metallurgy of the original...