Smithsonian exhibit spotlights richness, diversity of Indian art

By David Minthorn
The Associated Press

THE CHARLES AND VALERIE DIKER COLLECTION "Twelve High Ranking Kiowa Men," a paper, ink and colored pencil sketch, circa 1880, by Julian Scott, from the "First American Art" exhibit at the National Museum of the American Indian in New York.

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For the first time, the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian is presenting a trove of tribal creations as "art" and not "artifact."

"First American Art," a dazzling display of 200 tribal art items from the 18th and 19th centuries, lays out the aesthetics of Indian creativity.

The richly adorned, beautifully formed and highly functional items are shown in a vaulted gallery of the Smithsonian's George Gustav Heye Center in Lower Manhattan. The exhibition opens Saturday in its only stop and runs through October 2005. Admission is free.

On the Web For more information, see www.AmericanIndian.si.edu

The objects range from buckskin attire and moccasins to baby carriers; carved utensils, woven baskets, wooden bowls, pottery and trays to weapons and tools; and historic drawings to figures and masks from sacred rituals.

Tribes from across North America are represented, including Lakota, Cheyenne, Apache, Iroquois, Tlingit, Haida, Ute, Arapaho, Kiowa and Cherokee, Navajo and Seminole.

The collection is on loan from Charles and Valerie Diker, a wealthy New York couple who have been collecting Indian objects for three decades. They avoid contemporary American Indian art, focusing instead on historically fine works of great beauty.

These tribal treasures are normally displayed in the Dikers' Park Avenue apartment to complement their collection of European-American modernists, including Miro, Rauschenberg, Calder, Dine and Nevelson.

	A Haida dogfish frontlet, circa 1860, by an unknown artist.

To identify the artistic principles inherent in the Indian masterpieces, 16 curators and art historians — half from tribal societies — held a two-day retreat at the Dikers' home gallery to identify the sensibilities common to great Indian art. They articulated seven principles — idea, emotion, intimacy, movement, integrity, vocabulary and composition — which form the organizational segments of the show, with specific objects illustrating each rubric.

Summing up great Native art, curators Bruce Bernstein and Gerald McMaster write in the catalog, "indigenous systems of aesthetics ... guided its creation, from the choice of materials to the slope of the brow on a mask or the silhouette of a bowl."

Moreover, migrating tribal societies shared artistic ideas across vast reaches of North America, as seen by recurring designs and techniques in various regions.

And just as tribal artists borrowed and shared creative concepts over the centuries, they also adopted the white man's trading goods for their artistic purposes — the tiny European glass beads that adorn apparel and household objects, and trinkets such as mirrors and bells sewn onto garments for eye-catching effects.

	A painted Tlingit wood mask, circa 1820-1860, by an unknown artist.

Describing elaborate baby carriers decorated with beads, feathers, tin and quill, Arthur Amiotte of the Lakota comments, "aesthetic sensibilities were extended even to infancy, as a form of adoration and treasuring."

The art of Amiotte's great-grandfather, Standing Bear, is represented in a 3-foot-by-9-foot mural of the Battle of the Little Bighorn on June 25, 1876, where he fought as a 17-year-old with Crazy Horse.

The ink, pencil and watercolor drawing shows the battlefield in full action, with dozens of soldiers and Indians in mortal combat, some pierced by arrows, with Indians riding off with horses of the 220 U.S. troops who died.

Other highlights include Kiowa and Arapaho ledger drawings of Indian life on the Plains from the mid-19th century; a Seminole sash from 1835; a Pueblo clay jar with geometric design from 1050; a Blackfeet boy's hide shirt, decorated with ermine, glass beads, wool, metal, mirror and copper bells, from 1875; a Haida raven rattle from 1840; and a Cheyenne infant's moccasins from 1830, completely encased in beadwork.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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