Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists

Women have long been the creative force behind Native American art, yet their individual contributions have been largely unrecognized, instead treated as anonymous representations of entire cultures. Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists explores the artistic achievements of Native women and establishes their rightful place in the art world.

This landmark exhibition is the first major thematic show to explore the artistic achievements of Native women. Its presentation at SAAM’s Renwick Gallery includes 81 artworks dating from antiquity to the present, made in a variety of media from textiles and beadwork, to sculpture, time-based media and photography. At the core of this exhibition is a firm belief in the power of the collaborative process. A group of exceptional Native women artists, curators, and Native art historians have come together to generate new interpretations and scholarship of this art and their makers, offering multiple points of view and perspectives to enhance and deepen understanding of the ingenuity and innovation that have always been foundational to the art of Native women.

The exhibition is organized by Jill Ahlberg Yohe, associate curator of Native American Art at the Minneapolis Institute of Art and Teri Greeves, an independent curator and member of the Kiowa Nation. An advisory panel of Native women artists and Native and non-Native scholars provided insights from a range of nations.

The presentation at the Renwick is the third stop on a four venue national tour. The exhibition is accompanied by a beautifully illustrated catalogue, which includes essays, personal reflections, and poems by twenty members of the Exhibition Advisory Board and other leading scholars and artists in the field. It is available for purchase ($39.95) in the Renwick Gallery store.