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20th Century Native Peoples Imagery

Native Peoples: North American, Canadian, and Australian Prints, an exhibition of twentieth century native imagery, is showing in the Janet Turner Print Gallery until September 23.

Matthew Looper, Art History, is guest curator of the show. Students in Professor Looper’s fall American Indian Art class will use the works in their course of study.

Printmaking, a nontraditional medium to native peoples, was taught in native-funded workshops, primarily in Canada and the Pacific Northwest during the 1970s and ‘80s. Because printmaking is a permanent medium, it offers a way to keep native heritages alive, according to Catherine Sullivan, curator of the Janet Turner Print Gallery.

These prints offer a unique opportunity to see how contemporary native peoples view themselves in relation to culture, myth, and religion. Although created recently, most feature traditional imagery. The print shown here, Dandy, by T.C. Cannon, however, is an exception. The felt hat, scarf, and ammunition belt are a far cry from feathered headdress, war paint, and tomahawk. T.C. Cannon is known for his use of satire, says Sullivan, and the title of this piece may be a clue toward understanding the artist’s perspective.

A side exhibition examines the use of native inspired imagery by non-native artists, including the striking male Native American portrait in the serigraph Buffalo Stamp, 1976, by former CSU, Chico student Alexis Greenburg. Why include non-native artists? “Because their work has a clear iconographic relationship to the work of the native artists that brings up interesting questions of authenticity, as well as the meaning of the native body of work,” Looper says.