Southwest Indian Arts, May 3-June 15, 1958

Art of the American Southwest is the visual arts of the Southwestern United States. This region encompasses Arizona, New Mexico, and parts of California, Colorado, Nevada, Texas, and Utah. These arts include architecture, ceramics, drawing, filmmaking, painting, photography, sculpture, printmaking, and other media, ranging from the ancient past to the contemporary arts of the present day. Within the last millennium, Athabaskan peoples emigrated from northern Canada to the southwest. These include the Navajo and Apache. Sandpainting is an aspect of Navajo healing ceremonies that inspired an art form. Navajos learned to weave on upright looms from Pueblos and wove blankets that were eagerly collected by Great Basin and Plains tribes in the 18th and 19th centuries. After the introduction of the railroad in the 1880s, imported blankets became plentiful and inexpensive, so Navajo weavers switched to producing rugs for trade. Pueblo, Navajo and Apache tribes cherished turquoise for its amuletic use; the latter tribe believed the stone to afford the archer dead aim. Among these peoples turquoise was used in mosaic inlay, in sculptural works, and was fashioned into toroidal beads and freeform pendants. The distinctive silver jewelry produced by the Navajo and other Southwestern Native American tribes today is a rather modern development, thought to date from circa 1880 as a result of European influences.

Silverworking was adopted by native Southwest artists beginning in the 1850s, when Mexican silversmiths had to trade their silverwork for cattle from the Navajo. The Zuni admired the silver jewelry made by the Navajo, such as Atsidi Sani (Old Smith), so they began trading livestock for instruction in working silver. By 1890, the Zuni had taught the Hopi how to make silver jewelry. Native Americans were also influenced by the introduction of paintings made with oil and watercolor on canvas, where they traditionally painted objects such as hides or inside buildings, such as on the walls of a kiva. The Native American paintings provided artwork that was realistic of the Native American lifestyle in contrast to the work of Anglo-Americans romantic depictions. Traditional design elements were formalized at the Studio at the Santa Fe Indian School, defining flat style Native American art. The Studio was developed in 1932 by Dorothy Dunn, who taught there until 1932, and was replaced by Geronima Cruz Montoya (Ohkay Owingeh), who taught art at the Studio until its closing in 1962, when the Institute of American Indian Arts was established.

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