Albert Bierstadt painted “Donner Lake from the Summit” in 1873.
Museum of Art in Washington D.C., the De Young Museum in San Francisco, the Field Museum in Chicago, the California State Capital, the Nevada State Museum, and the University of Nevada, Reno. The museum’s galleries have been closed for almost a month so this exhibit could be installed, and when they open again Aug. 22 they’ll look a little different than usual. New cabinetry, mural-sized, historic photos printed on the wall and antique, leather-bound books in vitrines make it look a bit like a history museum. And, just like in a history museum, visitors are expected to start on the third floor and progress through the exhibit in chronological order. Wove n t h ro u g h h i s to r y: R e g i o n a l b a s ke t r y
A n e x h i b i t i o n At t h e n e vA dA M u s e u M o f A R t M A p s t h e A R t h i s to Ry o f L A k e tA h o e
By Kris Vagner
P
icture Lake Tahoe. Now picture what you think might be “the art of Lake Tahoe.” What comes to mind? For me, until last week, “Tahoe art” meant magazine photos of Sand Harbor’s boulders, set as if they were jewels in seductive, cerulean and emerald waters; chainsawcarved bear statues standing outside gift shops; and high-contrast black and white glossies of Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra or anyone trying to emulate their style, sitting around a poker table with a martini, grinning uproariously. Images from pop culture, kitsch and Nevada Commission on Tourism ads came to mind easily, but what
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about images from actual art history or those by artist working today? Other than the bold landscapes and swirling skies by South Lake Tahoe’s Phyllis Shafer, the region’s most prominent contemporary landscape painter, I had nothing. Then I joined curator Ann Wolfe for a sneak preview of the exhibit, Tahoe: A Visual History at the Nevada Museum of Art. It turns out the gap in my knowledge wasn’t just from having snoozed through the “Tahoe” chapter of college art history. The problem was that it hadn’t yet been written. “There’s never been a full art history of our region undertaken,” Wolfe said. “Yosemite has been done, Yellowstone,
Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls—major art museums and art historians have worked on that material, but never Lake Tahoe and Donner.” Five years ago, she set out to research, write and exhibit that history. This weekend it will be officially unveiled in the form of a comprehensive exhibit that takes up the whole museum, accompanied by a catalog that weighs in at almost 500 pages and a wider-than-usual roster of special events. The schedule includes gallery talks, classes, Tahoe Rim Trail Association hikes, a commissioned musical performance, and what sounds like an Antiques Road Show of historic basketry, where people
can bring in their Native American-made baskets and have them identified by a panel of experts, three of whom have the title of “Dr.” before their names. In addition to scholars of basketry, Wolfe and the museum staff also consulted a range of other experts to help get their heads around this enormous topic. They included essayists, curators, research librarians, archivists and members of the Washoe Cultural Advisory Committee. The museum borrowed about 400 paintings, maps and documents from a long list of lenders that includes collectors, galleries, museums and institutions such as the Metropolitan
The first stop is a large collection of Washoe baskets. “People know the Gatekeeper’s”—the museum of the North Lake Tahoe Historical Society in Tahoe City, California—“and they know the Nevada Historical Society, and they have great collections,” Wolfe said. But there hasn’t ever been an exhibit that’s covered the full scope of Washoe basketry. She worked with scholars and consultants to unearth dozens of stories, enough baskets to fill several rooms, and a few other woven items such as snowshoes, fishing nets and cradleboards for carrying babies. “Most of these were collected about 1890s, some older than that,” Wolfe said. There are several examples of contemporary baskets, but still, Wolfe hopes it’s not a dying art form. She said, “Although the tradition is still cherished by Washoe people, there are very few basket weavers still working. It’s super time-consuming, and there’s not a market for it.” She named Florine Conway and Sue Coleman as two artisans who still work in the tradition. As part of a larger effort to keep
