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Feature article
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Discover Indian art at McClung Museum
By Allison Alfonso
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We’re fortunate to have a history museum of the quality and depth of the Frank H. McClung Museum at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. The Smithsonian affiliate has collections and exhibits in anthropology, archaeology, geology, natural history and decorative arts from around the state, country and world.
The latest is “Discovering American Indian Art,” running Aug. 29-Jan. 10. The selection of approximately 70 objects comes from a Tennessee couple’s private collection developed over a span of 30 years from an initial purchase of Kachina dolls in Santa Fe, N.M. Ten Native American cultures throughout the United States and Canada and more than 30 tribal groups are represented.
According to show materials, the primary collection strengths are carved masks from the Arctic and Pacific Northwest Coast and beadwork from the Great Lakes, Northeastern woodlands and the Canadian Sub-Arctic. Items made by Indians of the Plateau and Great Basin, California, the American Southwest, the Great Plains, Prairie grasslands and the Southeastern woodlands are also featured. The work reveals the artistic and cultural merit of the items and the broad range of American Indian material culture.
“They say volumes about the creativity and resilience of Indian peoples, and how they not only incorporated aspects of Euro-American culture, but how art was employed by Native artists as an expression of ethnic identity, solidarity and pride,” show materials reveal.
The art spans at least 150 years, and some was made by well-known contemporary Indian artists. The majority was produced at the end of the 19th century, and the identity of the artists and those who once owned the pieces is not known. Historic photographs that show Indians wearing or making items similar to those on display are included.
Most items were made for family, relatives and tribe members, and others for sale to whites. The Iroquois of New York and Canada produced “a wealth” of small beaded coin purses, hand bags, pin cushions, wall plaques, slippers and caps purchased by Niagara Falls visitors in the late 19th and 20th centuries.
Curio art also emerged in other places, including the Southwest. Indians sometimes borrowed objects and ideas from Euro-American culture and decorated them according to their aesthetic traditions. These include the large beaded Midewiwin shoulder bags of the Ojibwa, Winnebago and other tribes of the Great Lakes. They were modeled after white leather shot bags used by white frontiersmen and were symbols of status for the healers who owned them and the women who made them.
The exhibit items have a range of uses. Baskets transported and stored wild plant foods, and some items were made for use in rituals and ceremonies, including the carved and painted wooden masks of the Indians of the Arctic and Northwest Coast. Materials state Indians of the past never created art simply for the sake of art, but always for functional roles.
Many items signaled ethnic or tribal identity, status, personal achievements, gender and the consummate artistic skills of the women who produced and embellished them. The baskets, pottery, weavings and most of the beadwork were made by women. Weapons, hunting tools and the carving of wood, ivory, stone and metal were produced by males.
Dr. David W. Penney will give an illustrated talk “Native American Art: Land, Sovereignty and Local Knowledge” Sept. 27 at 2 p.m. in the museum auditorium. He is the vice president of Exhibitions and Collection Strategies at the Detroit Institute of Arts and was curator of Native American art for 24 years.
John Buxton will discuss “The Story Behind the Art –John Buxton’s Experiences in Tribal Art and on the Antiques Roadshow” Nov. 15 at 2 p.m. He is a certified appraiser of personal property with the International Society of Appraisers and an appraiser with the “Antiques Roadshow” since 1997.
Hours are Monday-Saturday 9 a.m.-5 p.m. and Sunday 1-5 p.m. The museum address is 1327 Circle Park Drive. For more information, visit mcclungmuseum.utk.edu/.
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