Richard Conn

Richard Conn’s interest in the culture of Native America was kindled by his father, whose early life in the Puget Sound region gave him a command of Chinook jargon, the lingua franca of Pacific Northwest Indians.  Conn himself grew up in western Montana and Seattle an earned an M.A. in anthropology from the University of Washington.  His experience as an assistant in the Washington State Museum while still a student led him to a career in museology.  Before coming to the Denver Art Museum as curator of native arts, he was chief of human history at the Manitoba Museum of Man and Nature in Winnipeg and director of the Eastern Washington State Historical Society in Spokane.  His publications have centered on his particular interests within the field of Native American art—the traditional clothing of the entire continent, the arts of the Plains, Plateau, and Southwest, and the history of glass trade beads in North America.

Biographical Source: NATIVE AMERICAN ART in the Denver Art Museum by Richard Conn