Navajo Indian Sand Paintings Reproduced by Maud Oakes, March 1-April 30, 1944

Sub-Series

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

An exhibition of reproductions of sand paintings by Navajo artists by American ethnologist Maud Oakes.
The exhibition records span five folders and include an exhibition description, correspondence with the artist, planning correspondence, registration receipts, and collateral from other installations.

Dates

Creation: March 1-April 30, 1944

Creator

Oakes, Maud, 1903-1990 (Artist, Person)

Conditions Governing Access

At this time, the exhibition records are unavailable to the public and will only be made available to FAMSF staff upon request.

Biographical / Historical

Maud Van Cortlandt Oakes was an ethnologist, artist and writer who published her research into the cultures of indigenous tribes in the Americas, including the Navajo of the American Southwest and the Mam of Guatemala. She is best known for her books recording these tribes' ceremonies, art, and stories.

She was born May 25, 1903, in Seattle, Washington but grew up in New York City. Her family's prosperity allowed her to travel and she thus developed an interest in the culture of Native Americans while visiting Washington State and vacationing on Bainbridge Island in Puget Sound. It was that trip that inspired her to pursue her passion for ethnology, focusing on indigenous tribes of the Americas. Her research included renderings of tribal art. In the 1940s, she received a grant from the Old Dominion Foundation (now the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation) to study the rituals of the Dine (Navajo) people, which resulted in her first book, “Where the Two Came to Their Father, A Navaho War Ceremonial.” In that book, she described the Navajo creation story as well as a ceremony by Navajo singer Jeff King that she witnessed while living on the reservation in 1942-1943. Oakes also took that opportunity to replicate the sand paintings used during the ceremony. A series of 18 pochoir stencil prints derived from the original sandpaintings were published in 1943 and subsequently exhibited in this 1944 exhibition at the Legion of Honor.

On a similar trip, from late 1945 to early 1947, Oakes lived for 17 months in the village of Todos Santos in a remote part of the highlands of Guatemala. She documented the art and spiritual practices of the Mam tribe and their pre-Columbian cultural roots. One of her resulting books, “The two crosses of Todos Santos,” Oakes described a religious ritual that had survived from Mayan times. In another book, “Beyond the Windy Place,” Oakes talked about her life in the village. Her papers were published by Princeton University in the 1940s and 1950s and republished as part of a collection in the 1990s.

Oakes later became a student of Carl Jung and made his philosophy the subject of her final book, “The Stone Speaks,” which reflected her personal meditations on a large carved stone located in the garden of Bollingen Tower, the name given to Jung's home on Lake Zürich in Switzerland. Oakes was named an honorary member of the C. G. Jung Institute in San Francisco, and became a close friend of actor and researcher Natacha Rambova when she was studying Egyptian artifacts, and at whose apartment Oakes attended classes. Oakes died in 1990 at her home at Carmel, California, at the age of 87.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maud_Oakes

Extent

0.1 Linear Feet (The exhibition records span five folders.)

Language of Materials

From the Collection: English

Additional Description

Abstract

An exhibition of reproductions of sand paintings by Navajo artists by American ethnologist Maud Oakes. The exhibition records span five folders.

Arrangement

The materials are separated by content and type and organized chronologically.

Related Exhibitions

Legion of Honor: Art Collection of the Honorable T. B. Walker (1925)
Legion of Honor: Pan-American Exhibition (1926)
Legion of Honor: The Southwest Exhibition (1928)
de Young: Arts and Crafts of the Indians of the Southwest (1934)
de Young: Arts and Crafts of the Indians of the Southwest (1935)
de Young: Pre-Columbian Collection from Philadelphia, Costa Rica, and Cannon Island, Collected and Lent by Dr. Jose B. Gonzalez (1936)
de Young: Indian Pottery of the Southwest from the Collection of Mr. Lee L. Stopple (1937)
de Young: Southwestern Indian Arts from the Collection of Mr. & Mrs. Charles de Young Elkus (1938)
de Young: American Indian Painting, Assembled by the International Art Center (1938)
de Young: Contemporary Paintings by Indians of the Southwest from the Collection of Miss Elizabeth Campbell (1940)
de Young: Arts of America Before Columbus (1942)
de Young: American Indian Watercolors (1943)
de Young: Watercolors by Martin Gambee (1944)
Legion of Honor: South American Colonial Silver (from the Collections of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Woods Bliss and Mr. and Mrs. Fernando Berckemeyer) (1943)
Legion of Honor: American Indian Designs for Pottery (1944)
de Young: Beadwork of North American Indians (1944)
Legion of Honor: Navajo Indian Sand Paintings Reproduced by Maud Oakes (1944)
Legion of Honor: Religious Folk Art of the Southwest (1945)
Legion of Honor: Religious Folk Art of the Southwest: Photographs of Santos and Bultos (1945)
de Young: The Art of Alaska, Lent by Earl Stendahl (1947)
Legion of Honor: American Indian Painting (1948)
Legion of Honor: The Navajo: Photographs Lent by Life Magazine (1949) de Young: Contemporary American Indian Paintings and Rugs by Quincy Tahoma (1950)
de Young: Contemporary American Indian Arts and Crafts (1953)
de Young: Contemporary American Indian Painting (1954)
Legion of Honor: Navajo Sand Paintings by David Villasenor (1957)
Legion of Honor: Southwest Indian Arts (1958)
Legion of Honor: Paintings by American Indians (1962)
Legion of Honor: Indian Art of the Northwest Coast (1962)
de Young: Contemporary Navajo Indian Arts and Crafts (1962)
de Young: 1000 Years of American Indian Art (1964)
Legion of Honor: Southwest Indian Arts II (1965)
de Young: Contemporary Native American Ceramics (1973)
Legion of Honor: Form and Freedom: Indian Art of the Northwest Coast (1978)
de Young: Bigware: Large Pots from African, Oceanic, North and South American, and European Cultures (1978)
de Young: Art of the Being Huichol: An Exhibition of Art from the Huichol Indians of Mexico (1979)
de Young: Lines on the Horizon: Native American Art from the Weisel Family Collection (2014)
de Young: Jules Tavernier and the Elem Pomo (2021)