Arts of Indigenous America

Celebrating the vibrancy and diversity of Indigenous American art, this new presentation features beloved collection highlights alongside major acquisitions and commissions by contemporary artists. In the most extensive reinstallation of this collection in 20 years, each of the four refreshed galleries explores a different aspect of the theme “Relationship to Place.” Developed with Native scholars and in consultation with communities of origin, the project centers Indigenous values and voices. Works spanning over a thousand years of history in all types of media challenge expectations about what Native art is and can be.

Gallery 1, located off Wilsey Court, highlights Native California and, through rotating exhibitions, specific regions within the state. The opening exhibition, Rooted in Place, explores the interconnections between art, ceremony, and the land in the Karuk, Yurok, Hupa, Tolowa, and Wiyot communities of northwestern California.

Gallery 2, Of Courts and Cosmos: Ancestral Maya Art, remains dedicated to presenting ceramics and carvings from our substantial collection of ancestral Maya art. Through focused groupings, the works on view explore the roles and responsibilities of the divine rulers in the ancestral Maya world, and how they interfaced with the celestial realm to ensure their community’s success and well-being.

Gallery 3 highlights our noted collection of mural fragments from Teotihuacan, Mexico. The installation examines the murals through a conservation lens, detailing the materials and techniques used to make the vibrant frescoes, as well as the history of the Teotihuacan Murals Project, a multiyear collaborative conservation and repatriation project with Mexico’s Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH).

Gallery 4, Home and Away, is the second Native American art gallery and features artworks by Indigenous artists from the United States, Canada, and Mexico, challenging the divisions created by modern political boundaries. Arranged thematically rather than geographically, the gallery explores the connections between communities, homelands, systems of knowledge, and generations past, present, and future. The gallery presents contemporary and historic artworks in a wide variety of media — ceramics, textiles, paintings, beadwork, carvings, works on paper, and basketry — embodying the breadth of Native American art.

Curated by a team of predominantly Native curators, with a special focus on bridging historical and contemporary works.

This exhibition is organized by the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco.

Joseph Aguilar, PhD (San Ildefonso Pueblo) is an archaeologist with Bering Straits Native Corporation and works in and around his Pueblo. Aguilar has extensive experience working with museums regarding Ancestral Pueblo pottery and cultural stewardship.

Meyokeeskow Marrufo (Eastern Pomo) is an enrolled member of Robinson Rancheria in the Clear Lake basin, but has lived and learned from other California Tribes, including Yurok, Hupa, Maidu, and Miwok territories. She is an artist, curator, and teacher, focusing on cultural arts, regalia making, and foodways.

Hillary C. Olcott is the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco’s curator of the arts of the Americas and is the leader of this initiative. Her collaborative and cross-disciplinary projects engage with Indigenous arts and artists across the Americas.

Will Riding In (Pawnee/Santa Ana Pueblo) is the curator of the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian in Santa Fe. His research focuses on historic and contemporary Pueblo pottery, 20th-century Pueblo watercolorists, and Southern Plains ledger art. Riding In is also a potter, working to revive Santa Ana pottery techniques and designs.

Sherrie Smith-Ferri, PhD (Dry Creek Pomo/Bodega Miwok) is a member of Sonoma County’s Dry Creek Rancheria Band of Pomo Indians. She is currently working as the Tribal Historic Preservation Officer for Dry Creek Rancheria, a project consultant, and a board member for numerous cultural organizations. She studies and writes about California Indian basketry, art, and history.

Alme Allen (Karuk/Yurok), multimedia artist, designer, cultural consultant, and mentor

Bruce Bernstein, PhD, Tribal Historic Preservation Officer for San Ildefonso Pueblo

Jonathan Cordero, PhD (Ramaytush Ohlone, Bay Miwok, and Chumash), founder and executive director of the Association of Ramaytush Ohlone

Christina Hellmich, PhD, curator in charge, arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

Pimm Tripp-Allen (Karuk/Yurok), vice president of community partnerships and tribal relations at the Humboldt Area Foundation

Brian Vallo (Pueblo of Acoma), former director of the Indian Arts Research Center, School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe

Thomas W. Weisel Family Major Support

Programmatic support is provided through major support by the CORA Foundation.