November 2019

Nov 1

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November foliage turns to Native American Heritage Month and Thanksgiving. Every week I pass by Cyrus Dallin's monumental sculpture "Appeal to the Great Spirit" as I climb up the marble steps to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Earlier this year, the MFA held a sold-out lecture to reexamine the sculpture from multiple perspectives; does the work portray a dignified Native American figure, as the artist intended, or does it simply uphold a 19th-century stereotype of Native Americans as a "vanishing race"?

Also earlier this year, the ICP Museum in New York exhibited For Freedoms: Where Do We Go From Here? Re-envisioning Norman Rockwell's "Four Freedoms" paintings, the For Freedoms photographs featured more inclusive representations, including the Thanksgiving family scene (Freedom From Want) and the Freedom of Worship piece featuring Native Americans. For Freedoms is an artist-led platform founded by Hank Willis Thomas and Eric Gottesman that investigates how art and artists can help deepen public discourse and political awareness in the United States.

The most immediate way that art enriches is visual. But this November, I am thankful for how art can engage from a historical perspective. By seeing how typical Native American representations are re-interpreted, how traditional Thanksgiving motifs are re-imagined, and how contemporary artists are confronting the past and present, my own Thanksgiving table will be that much more thoughtful, meaningful, and grateful.

- Hadley

Gallery to Visit

Image: Devan Shimoyama, "The Abduction of Ganymede," oil, color pencil, dye, sequins, collage, glitter and jewelry on canvas, 2019

Founded in 2011 by international art dealer David De Buck, De Buck Gallery focuses on contemporary artists from emerging to mid career and is deeply committed to innovative artists' projects and exhibitions. De Buck presents artists with a strong curatorial following and critical acclaim. The current exhibition, The GAG, a group show curated by Devan Shimoyama, features work by Alex Anderson, Devan Shimoyama, Didier William, and Jonathan Lyndon Chase. Shows such as The GAG demonstrate the gallery's cutting-edge and cross-disciplinary approach with dynamic new multi-media programming and performance.

Artist to Watch

Image: Kent Monkman, The Fourth World, acrylic paint on canvas, 2012. Collection of the Denver Art Museum.

Kent Monkman has been selected to create two monumental paintings for the Great Hall of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Born in Canada, Monkman has established himself as one of the most exciting and dynamic contemporary artists in North America. He is a Cree artist widely known for his provocative interventions into Western European and American art history. Monkman's gender-fluid alter ego, Miss Chief Eagle Testickle, often appears in his work as a time-traveling, shape-shifting, supernatural being who reverses the colonial gaze to challenge received notions of history and Indigenous peoples.

"I pillage the history of painting, from the Baroque era to Romanticism, to investigate and challenge the subjectivity of the European eye on Aboriginal peoples and the 'New World'" says the artist. For Monkman, history is not a static, repressive regime of misleading stereotypes and tired art historical tropes, but rather a nimble medium ripe for re-imagining and re-population.

Recently placed works

Richard Loud's luminous oil painting "Racing to Windward, Aurora (K-19) and Winsome (K-29)" depicts two sloops of Class K, which competed circa 1907 until 1912. According to a New York Times article at the time, the Aurora and Winsome each won twelve points during the Marshall Cup race week at Larchmont, NY.

Loud has spent his life surrounded by boats. The son of a master shipwright, he was exposed early to the complexities and beauty of boat design and construction. His work combines a thorough understanding of a wide variety of vessel types and sea conditions, with a uniquely painterly feeling for light and atmosphere.

Upcoming Exhibitions & Events

Jeffrey Gibson, Radiant Tushka, 2018. Repurposed quilt, assorted glass, plastic and stone beads, printed chiffon, nylon ribbon, canvas, acrylic paint, nylon fringe, copper, and artificial sinew, 95 ½ x 64 x 2 ½ inches.

Looking for something to do with family over the holidays?
Check out these Native American Art exhibitions on view in a city (or town) near you

Native American Art, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem
Native North American Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
The Art of Ambition in the Colonial Northeast, Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover
People of the First Light, Abbe Museum, Bar Harbor, Maine
Stretching the Canvas: Eight Decades of Native Painting, National Museum of the American Indian, Washington, DC
Picturing the American Buffalo: George Catlin and Modern Native American Artists, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC
Portrait of the Artist as an Indian / Portrait of the Indian as an Artist, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth, NH
Art for a New Understanding: Native Voices, 1950s to Now, Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, NC

SMFA at Tufts Art Sale

Discover works from emerging and established artists—students, alumni, faculty, and friends of SMFA at Tufts. Your purchase directly supports artists and allows SMFA to enhance the student experience, support faculty, and provide financial aid to deserving students. With a wide variety of price points and media, the SMFA Art Sale is a wonderful opportunity to start collecting Contemporary art while supporting the local Boston art community.

SMFA at Tufts Art Sale, November 21-24, 11am - 7pm