Innovation

Unrecorded Navajo artist

Pin

1968-1978
silver with inlaid turquoise
Gift of Helen Cox Kersting in Memory of Dr. Hans Joachim Kersting
2008.8.98
About the Artist

Unrecorded Navajo artist

Historic or customary items (such as the ones in this exhibition) were separated from their original makers and communities, resulting in a difficult, challenging history of collecting and exhibiting Native art. An unintended anonymity within Native art has occurred because the names of artists were not recorded at the time their art was collected. Past anthropologists and collectors were more interested in acquiring the items; the artists’ names were not a priority for them. Despite this error in judgement, these artists were known by his/her/their community. We acknowledge this relationship in our text labels that read “unrecorded artist of”.

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