Art News

Exhibition spotlights a unique development in native American art history with works from three collections

STANFORD, CA.- A new movement of Native American painting emerged in the Pueblo communities of the southwestern United States in the early 20th century. Encouraged by anthropologists and teachers to record past and current scenes of their daily life on paper, the artists found inspiration in the centuries-old tradition of Pueblo painting seen in pottery, murals and archaeological remains. The earliest Pueblo artists were self-taught, and they struggled for recognition from the local and national art market. In the 1930s, the formation of the Studio at the Santa Fe Indian School formalized the training of generations of Native painters and secured the continuance and expansion of this new tradition of Native American easel painting. The resulting works were dynamic, colorful and decidedly modern. “Memory and Markets: Pueblo Painting in the Early 20th Century,” at