PALM SPRINGS, CA – The Agua Caliente Cultural Museum will present A Beauty That Endures: Native Painting, Ceremony, and Resilience in the 20th Century, an exhibition examining the emergence and development of Indigenous painting during the 20th century. Curated by Tony Abeyta, the exhibition opens Oct. 3.
Featuring more than 50 paintings by artists representing more than a dozen tribal nations, A Beauty That Endures brings together works from the collection of the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art at the University of Oklahoma.
Focusing on the first half of the 20th century, the exhibition explores a period when Indigenous artists adapted longstanding artistic traditions while responding to significant political, cultural and social change. Working during an era shaped by federal assimilation policies, boarding schools, Christian missions, relocation and military service during World War II, the artists drew on ceremonial, philosophical and aesthetic traditions from their respective communities.
Native easel painting during this period expanded upon visual traditions that included pottery, weaving, hide painting, architectural murals and ceremonial design. Institutions including the Santa Fe Indian School and Bacone College in Oklahoma also became centers for artistic development and influenced generations of Native artists.
Artists represented in the exhibition include Acee Blue Eagle, Frank Day, Allan Houser, Jack Hokeah, Oscar Howe, Velino Shije Herrera, Stephen Mopope, Tonita Peña, Pop Chalee, Alfonso Roybal, Ernest Spybuck, Quincy Tahoma, Princess Bonita Wa Wa Calachaw Nunez, Dick West and Valjean Hessing, among others.
Through depictions of ancestral narratives, sacred beings, landscapes, dances and everyday life, the works examine relationships to ceremony, oral tradition, place and community memory. Many of the artists represented are also included in the collections of institutions such as the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Denver Art Museum and Heard Museum.
As the cultural institution of the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians, the Agua Caliente Cultural Museum presents the exhibition within an Indigenous curatorial framework focused on Native perspectives and the role of Indigenous artists in American art history.
The exhibition is organized through the loan of artworks from the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art at the University of Oklahoma.
