Indian Painters and White Patrons [SOLD]

Indian Painters & White Patrons

by J. J. Brody

University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque

First Edition, hardcover with slip jacket, 1971, 238 pages

Illustrated with 100 reproductions of Indian art work, some in color

From the Jacket:

“In this major work of criticism in art and social history, Dr. Brody demonstrates that modern Indian painting has been, until 1962, not a truly native expression derived from aboriginal forms but merely a passive response to White paternalism.  He deflates the notion that this is a true primitive art form and presents a much-needed chronology of the relationship between Indian and White in the revival of an Indian art form in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries.  It has been, according to Dr. Brody, an art produced by Indians for Whites, an invention rather than a revival, with little or no relationship to earlier pictorial modes and functions among the Indians.

“In reaching these revisionist conclusions, the author surveys the archaeological evidence of prehistoric Indian art throughout the United States, traces early contacts between Indians and Europeans, and describes Indian-White relationships in the 19^th and 20^th centuries.  He analyzes the development of modern Indian painting from the craft revival of the late 19^th century to self-taught Pueblo painters who emerged about 1916 under the patronage of the Santa Fe intellectual community; the early institutional painters trained by Dorothy Dunn and Oscar Jacobson; the later institutional painters with whom the art began to lose its decorative quality; and the painters of the new era which began with the founding of the American Institute of Indian Arts in 1962 and which emphasizes expressionistic and experimental painting in the contemporary mode of White art.  Paradoxically therefore, Dr. Brody says, the death of paternalistic Indian painting was necessary for the birth of an independent art whose content is relevant to modern Indian life.”

Table of Contents

I. American Indian Painting Prior to The Twentieth Century

Rock Art

The Eastern Art Area

The Western Art Area

The Northwest Coast Art Area

The Plains Art Area

The Southwestern Art Area

Summary

II. Indian White Relationships

Assimilation

Government Relations

Economics, Religion, and Education

III. The Beginnings of Modern Indian Painting

Traditional Indian Painting in the Twentieth Century

The Craft Revival

Proto-Modern Indian Painting

IV. The Self-Taught Painters

V. The Early Institutional Painters

The Oklahoma Painters

The Studio of the Santa Fe Indian School

VI. The Later Institutional Painters

The Southwest

Oklahoma Regionalism

VII. The Transition to the Mainstream

The New Indian Painting

Appendix: Roster of Significant Modern American Indian Painters