Innovation

Unrecorded artist from a tribal nation of the Great Lakes region

Club

1800-1840
carved maple wood
Museum purchase with funds provided by a grant from Lilly Endowment Inc.
2019.2.292
About the Artist

Unrecorded artist from a tribal nation of the Great Lakes region

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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