Reinstalling Native American Art at MAM: A New Vision

Reinstalling Native American Art at MAM: A New Vision Project Overview & Funding Opportunities 1

At our founding in 1914, the Montclair Art Museum was among the first art museums in the United States to collect historic and contemporary Native American art alongside our non-Native collection, displaying it in a dedicated gallery space—an idea at the vanguard.

Prior installation in Rand Gallery, 2016

Today, we are creating a fresh, innovative presentation of works from our permanent collection of Indigenous art from North America.

This unprecedented reinstallation will span several gallery spaces at the Museum and will open in September 2024.

Roberts Gallery under construction for new installation, 2023

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THE COLLECTION

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Our Indigenous art collection has grown to more than objects, totaling one-third of MAM’s overall collection, thanks to:

Founding gift from: Florence Rand Lang in memory of her mother Annie Valentine Rand

Significant gifts from:

Donations of Indigenous art from many patrons over decades

Audrey and Norbert Gaelen The Gregory Family to support essential cataloguing of the collection

Ongoing intentional collecting by MAM

Throughout our history, we have continually expanded our collection of Native artworks. We have broadened our collecting since the 1990s, and contemporary Indigenous art is now an integral component of the gallery reinstallation.

Our collection reflects: • Work from the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries, as well as ancestral items • A wide range of media including regalia, ceramics, mixed media, basketry, paintings,

works on paper, beadwork and quillwork, carvings, photography, site-specific installations, and more • Diverse geographical areas and nations • Strengths in work by women artists • Historically under-represented Lenape and Northeastern artists and queer/two-spirit artists

The revitalization of these Museum spaces will honor the significance and impact of our collection, the Indigenous artists represented within, and their communities.

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THE REINSTALLATION

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Native art embodies Indigenous knowledge that is powerful and relevant.

-MAM’s Curator of Native American Art, Laura J. Allen

Through close collaboration with Indigenous colleagues, our approach reframes Native American art at MAM by: • Emphasizing Indigenous ways of knowing • Promoting the power of Indigenous peoples and art to shape the future • Being relevant to both Native and non-Native people

Through our work, we will: • Educate and empower our audience • Build sustained reciprocal relationships with Indigenous people, communities, institutions, and nations • Lead by example in the collection, presentation, and interpretation of Indigenous art of North America • Support Indigenous students, educators, artists, and curators

Artist, scholar, and elder Haa’yuups (Nuu-chah-nulth) and Chief Registrar and Exhibition Designer Osanna Urbay review a 19th-century Nuu-chah-nulth cedar bark cape in MAM’s collection, June 1, 2023

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EDUCATIONAL EDUCATIONALINITIATIVES INITIATIVES This reinstallation will reinvigorate the visitor experience for the Museum’s 80,000+ annual guests. This is particularly important for regional elementary students to supplement their in-school learning about Lenape peoples and the complex histories of the American continent.

Through collaboration and consultation with Indigenous and non-Indigenous educators, administrators, scholars, and artists, and in alignment with K-12 NJ State Learning Standards, we will develop curriculum guides, professional development programs, and inclusive tours and art-making programs, as well as a family guide for the galleries and opportunities for inter-generational engagement in the Learning Lab.

Artist and curator Jeremy Dennis (Shinnecock Nation) teaches a Sunday Studio at MAM, October 10, 2022

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PROJECT TEAM To realize this project, MAM is working with the guidance of an advisory council of Native and non-Native curator-scholars and alongside additional Indigenous collaborators and consultants from across the continent.

MAM’s Native American Art Advisory Council as of September 2023 • heather ahtone (Choctaw/Chickasaw Nation), Director, Curatorial Affairs, First Americans Museum • Kathleen Ash-Milby (Navajo Nation), Curator of Native American Art, Portland Art Museum • John P. Lukavic, Curator of Native Arts, Denver Art Museum • Sherrie Smith-Ferri (Dry Creek Band of Pomo Indians/Bodega Miwok), Retired Director, Grace Hudson Museum & Sun House; currently Tribal Historic Preservation Officer, Dry Creek Rancheria • Lucy Fowler Williams, Associate Curator and Senior Keeper of American Collections, Penn Museum

Former Members • Joe Baker (Delaware Tribe of Indians), Executive Director and Co-Founder, Lenape Center • Pamela Hearne Jardine, Ph.D., Curator Emerita of Native American Art, Montclair Art Museum (in memoriam) • Kay WalkingStick (Cherokee Nation), Artist and Professor Emerita, Cornell University

MAM Staff • Ira Wagner, Executive Director • Gail Stavitsky, Chief Curator • Laura J. Allen, Curator of Native American Art • Osanna Urbay, Chief Registrar and Exhibition Designer • Leah Fox, Director of the Vance Wall Art Education Center • Kristine Bowen, Associate Director of Education

I’m excited to see MAM’s treasures, including those from my own Native California community, emerging from storage to share stories of the creativity, resilience, and power of their makers.

–Sherrie Smith-Ferri at MAM, November 19, 2021

Support for the Native American Art Advisory Council and exhibition planning is generously provided by the Henry Luce Foundation.

Major support for the reinstallation is provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art and the Wyeth Foundation for American Art.

Additional lead support for the reinstallation is provided by contributors to the 2023 Native American Gallery Fund-a-Need.

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RECOGNITION OPPORTUNITIES

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The Native American Gallery Reinstallation is MAM’s biggest undertaking since the large-scale renovations to the Museum building during our centennial in 2014.

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Project Support • Gallery renovation and reconfiguration • Exhibition design • Object conservation and photography • Graphic design • Artwork digitization and website

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• Ongoing artist, curatorial, and program support Collaboration with Indigenous Artists and Experts • Community-based knowledge holders are visiting MAM to review key historical objects and collaboratively develop these narratives and displays.

We are working with and enlisting esteemed members of Northeast/ Lenape, Northwest Coast, Plains, California, Southwest (Pueblo), and Southeast communities, as well as specialists in key content areas.

• New contemporary artwork, some significant and site-specific for MAM and commissioned from artists such as Elizabeth James-Perry (Aquinnah Wampanoag), Eric-Paul Riege (Diné), and Holly Wilson (Delaware Nation), will strategically advance our collection and will transform the gallery spaces.

Educational Initiatives • Teacher Curriculum Guide for elementary grade levels • Teacher Professional Development Programs • Tour and Art-Making Programs for all ages and abilities • Family Guide and Learning Lab for inter-generational engagement

Detail of Harry Fonseca (Nisenan, 1946–2006), Maidu Creation Story, 1998.

Acrylic on canvas. 60 x 73 in. Museum Purchase, Acquisition Fund, 2007.25

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BENEFITS FOR SUPPORTERS This is a special opportunity to play an active role in furthering this important initiative.

We are grateful to recognize leading supporters in the following ways: • Name listing in the gallery and, where applicable, on all related print and digital materials • Invitations to exclusive events featuring contemporary Indigenous art and artists • Private reception for major project supporters prior to the September 2024 opening • Opportunity to host a curator- or docent-led tour of the new gallery • Artwork by Holly Wilson (Delaware Nation) unique to her site-specific commission • Copy of the new book on contemporary Native art, An Indigenous Present, edited by artist Jeffrey Gibson and featuring many artists involved at MAM • Subscription to First American Art magazine • …and more!

WAYS TO GIVE To make a gift in support of MAM’s Native American Gallery Reinstallation, please contact: Emily Nso, Director of Development enso@montclairartmuseum.org 973-259-5158

Above: Image courtesy of DelMonico Books NH. Right: Detail of Rose B. Simpson and Roxanne Swentzell (Khaʼpʼoe Ówîngeh [Santa Clara Pueblo], b. 1983 and 1962), Untitled (Timeline Necklace), 2019. Ceramic, glaze, leather, wood, string, mud beads and wire. 24 x 252 x 9 in.

Museum Purchase, Acquisition Fund, 2023.5. Image by Brian Wagner courtesy of Hood Museum of Art, Hanover, NH.

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We aim to advance Native American art and foster mutual respect and understanding.

-Frank J. Walter III, Board President 11

Re-envisioning the presentation of MAM’s Native art collection is a significant undertaking that will build on an outstanding collection, expand our relationships, and increase our impact with the communities we serve.

It is a foundation for our shared future.

For updates about this project, please visit:

MONTCLAIR ART MUSEUM | 3 South Mountain Avenue | Montclair, NJ 07042 | montclairartmuseum.org All MAM programs are made possible in part by funds from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts, The Vance Wall Foundation, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, and Museum members.

Front cover: Holly Wilson at MAM, September 11, 2023. She is holding one of her cast glass lenses (2017) featuring a figure wearing a Lenape turkey-feather cape.

Back cover: Detail of Shan Goshorn (Cherokee Nation, Eastern Band, 1957–2018). Educational Genocide; the Legacy of the Carlisle Indian Boarding School, 2011. Arches paper, ink, acrylic paint. Object: 12 × 20 × 12 in. Museum Purchase; Acquisition Fund, 2015.12 A-B

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