#nativeamericanart is an active hashtag on Bluesky. In the last 30 days, 6 people shared 30 posts with it — around 1 a day. Activity is up 0% versus the previous week, peaking on Sep 7 with 5 posts.

Posts with #nativeamericanart

Animal Aspects (Art History Animalia)

@animal-aspects.bsky.social

over 1 year ago

#Whale Effigy 🐳 Chumash (California, West Coast), c.1200-1600 Steatite, shell inlay, 7.1 x 9.5 cm Montreal Museum of Fine Arts 1950.51.Ab.9 www.mbam.qc.ca/en/works/2375/ #IndigenousArt #NativeAmericanArt

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Animal Aspects (Art History Animalia)

@animal-aspects.bsky.social

almost 2 years ago

For #Crustmas on #Woodensday: gamisida długwe' ( #Crab Puppet) Kwakwaka'wakw, BC, Canada, before 1952 Painted wood 11.4x22.9x67.9cm UBC MOA collection-online.moa.ubc.ca/search/item?... #FirstNationsArt #NativeAmericanArt The Kwakwaka’wakw have a history of puppetry related to ceremonial feasts.

“Wooden carving of a crab with protruding eyes and eight bent legs. Each leg is composed of two pieces of wood, nailed together, and the legs are immovable. The body and legs are painted red, and the face is painted in red, black, and white.”

“These articulated characters are known as dług̱we’ treasures (as are the theatrical dances in which they appear). The Kwakwaka’wakw have a history of puppetry related to their ceremonial feasts. The winter potlatches are known for their spectacular performances, suffused with cultural teachings and supernatural content, such as the coming of Winalagalis, the supernatural warrior. Dances and songs associated with Winalagalis include the tuxw’id, which is performed by women, who have the power and rights to make the dług̱we’ treasures (puppets) come to life. For instance, a tuxw’id dancer could summon a crustacean to life, on invisible cords, in the flickering firelight.”

front-facing view of the crab puppet showing face

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Animal Aspects (Art History Animalia)

@animal-aspects.bsky.social

over 1 year ago

For #InverteFest: #Ammonite Fossil in Black Marble #Bear Fetish Artist: Lena Boone, Zuni Pueblo On display at SRJC Multicultural Museum, CA (113.389) #IndigenousArt #NativeAmericanArt

photo of the object on display at museum: a Zuni Pueblo bear fetish figure fashioned out of an ammonite fossil in black marble, outer end of spiral carved into a bear face with small blue eye (turquoise?)

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Animal Aspects (Art History Animalia)

@animal-aspects.bsky.social

9 months ago

#FishFriday 🐠: Sculpin pendant Lingít culture, Pacific NW Coast, c.1900 Carved abalone shell, 8.8 × 4.5 × 1 cm (3 7/16 × 1 3/4 × 3/8 in.) Princeton University Art Museum 1998-509 artmuseum.princeton.edu/a…. #Fish #IndigenoisArt #FirstNationsArt #NativeAmericanArt

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Michael

@mdstamper.bsky.social

8 months ago

“Knows Her Medicine Crow Indian” by Kevin Red Star (Apsáalooke/Crow American) - Acrylic on canvas / 1981 - Denver Art Museum (Colorado) #WomenInArt #art #artText #artwork #DenverArtMuseum #KevinRedStar #RedStar #IndigenousWomen #Crow #Apsaalooke #PortraitofaWoman #indigeneousArt #NativeAmericanArt

A Crow (Apsáalooke) woman sits centered with her body turned only slightly as her face meets ours with a steady, composed gaze. Her skin is warm brown and her hair is parted and braided into two long plaits, the lower lengths wrapped for ceremony. She wears an elk-tooth cloak rendered in bold black, covered with dozens of pale, oval “teeth” that catch the light and suggest movement and sound. Bright red cuffs, collar, and a wide belt stand out while small white accents appear in her earrings and beadwork. Her hands are painted noticeably larger than her head and torso, resting in the foreground like an emphasized statement. She sits on a modern red chair before a flat wall, while a tipi scene in a frame appears behind her depicting it beneath a round moon (or sun). Heavy outlining and speckled paint spatters keep attention on the surface, making the portrait feel both intimate and monumental.

Apsáalooke (Crow Nation) artist Kevin Red Star builds portraits that honor Crow life while refusing a single, fixed time. The Denver Art Museum notes that his figures can be assembled from multiple sources including old photographs, historic tribal enrollment rolls, and images he makes at ceremonies and feasts, so name, clothing, and setting can come from different moments. Here, the modern chair and ambiguous “window” of tipis place the sitter in the present while she wears tradition. The elk teeth (each one tied on individually in real regalia) signal value, skill, and community history. By enlarging them, Red Star makes their cultural importance impossible to overlook. He also uses a sun or moon as a Crow symbol to give the sense that his people are “planted,” even when the space feels like it might float. The deliberate distortion of the hands grants authority and presence, as if knowledge and care are literally what we meet first.

Red Star, raised on the Crow Reservation and trained in formal painting, said you have to “know what you’re breaking before you break it.”

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Michael

@mdstamper.bsky.social

7 months ago

“The Chanters” by Joseph Henry Sharp (American) - Oil on canvas / c. 1930 - New Mexico Museum of Art (Santa Fe, New Mexico) #WomenInArt #JosephHenrySharp #JosephSharp #NativeAmericanArt #IndigenousWomen #PortraitofWomen #art #artText #AmericanArt #AmericanArtist #NewMexicoMuseumofArt #TaosSchool

Two Indigenous (Native American) women crouch close together on sunlit ground, turned slightly toward our right as if focused on something just beyond the frame. Both hold their hands raised at chest level, palms nearly caught mid-clap to suggest a steady rhythm rather than a single loud strike. The woman at left appears older, with a deeply lined face and a calm, intent expression. She wears a light blanket or shawl draped over her shoulders with geometric banding. The woman at right appears slightly younger, her dark hair pulled back. She wears a pale top and a warm, reddish skirt. The background is pared down to soft, sandy tones with minimal detail, so the women’s bodies, garments, and gestures carry the whole scene. Their posture is grounded, balanced, and purposeful like communal music and movement you can almost hear.

American artist Joseph Henry Sharp frames the women’s clapping as both performance and prayerful attention, emphasizing rhythm as a shared form of knowledge and something made together, not possessed. As an artist closely associated with Taos, New Mexico and the early 20th-century art colony there, he repeatedly painted Indigenous life through an outsider’s eye, often blending careful observation with the era’s taste for “timeless” images of Native cultures. That tension matters here because the women’s identities are not named, yet their presence is rendered with dignity and concentration, asking us to notice skill (timing, breath, cadence) rather than spectacle.

Scholarship around this work’s dating is complicated. Museum records place it around 1930, while other research links the title and signature style to Sharp’s earlier western period which suggests he may have revisited a long-held subject over time. Either way, the painting lingers on what endures: synchronized hands, shared song, and the authority of women shaping ceremony through sound and movement.

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Lance Smith 🎨🪶

@lancesmithart.com

about 1 month ago

All of our ancestors from coast to coast want us to fight for our sovereignty everyday. They paid the ultimate price. We have to protect and defend what is left for our children and grandchildren. #nativeamerican #indigenous #native #nativepride #nativeamericans #nativeamericanart #firstnations

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Michael

@mdstamper.bsky.social

10 months ago

“Rent-Che-Was-Me, Mak-Hos-Kah’s Wife (Female Flying Pigeon)” by Charles Bird King (American) - Oil on panel / 1825 - Gilcrease Museum (Tulsa, Oklahoma) #WomenInArt #art #artText #BlueskyArt #CharlesBirdKing #GilcreaseMuseum #PortraitofaWoman #NativeAmericanArt #Gilcrease #IndigenousWomen #1820sArt

Rantchewaime (also known as Rent-Che-Was-Me) was an Ioway (Iowa/Báxoje) woman and the favored wife of Chief Mahaska, or White Cloud. She and the Chief were part of an 1824 delegation to Washington, D.C. There, American artist Charles Bird King painted their portraits for a federal “Indian Gallery” which was later reproduced in McKenney and Hall’s influential book “History of the Indian Tribes of North America, with Biographical Sketches and Anecdotes of the Principal Chiefs” on Native nations.

Her name translates as “Female Flying Pigeon.” She was remembered for beauty and dignity. Later writers record that Ioway chiefs named her “the Beautiful Female Eagle that Flies in the Air,” honoring her status. In this panel, King echoes that esteem through careful dress, layered necklaces, diplomatic fan, and calm, frontal gaze rather than theatrical costume or inflammatory scenes of war.

She stands before a dark, undefined background, her body angled slightly as her eyes avoid ours. Her medium-brown skin is modeled by soft light that picks out the bridge of her nose, rounded cheeks, and gently closed mouth. Long dark hair with thick red horizontal streaks is center-parted and braided, falling over her shoulders. She wears a dotted pink dress partly wrapped in a pale blanket. Her neck is adorned with layered strands of blue and white beads and gleaming silver pendants. Drop earrings frame her face. Her right hand holds a round feather fan either a red circle marking, its soft plumes pressed close to her chest so that fan, jewelry, and gaze create a quiet triangle of presence and power.

Accounts describe her returning west and calling Ioway women together to speak about what she had witnessed in white society and to warn against destructive habits. Knowing that story, the fan, jewelry, and steady gaze in this panel suggest not simply a catalogued “type” but a moral leader and diplomatic partner whose presence complicates how we read these early American portraits.

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Zackery Dean BirdFaraway

@illustriouscrow.bsky.social

about 5 hours ago

My attempt at another abstract concept. Untitled work in progress. Practice design. #nativeamericanart #fyp #IndigenousArt #nativeculture #art #fypage #nativebeauty #indigenousartist #CrowTribe #contemporaryart #spiritart #Apsaalooke #nativeamericanculture #native #indigenousartist #originalart

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Watland Fine Art

@kwatland.bsky.social

over 1 year ago

"Chief Buck" 12x16 oil #art #artshow #Indianpainting #getoutside #fineart #artyear #WestCoast #PNW #Yakama #Yakima #NativeAmericanart #NatuveAmerican #oilpainting

Indian chief in full head dress portrait

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Animal Aspects (Art History Animalia)

@animal-aspects.bsky.social

5 months ago

Happy #WorldPuffinDay! Tufted #puffin feast bowl, c. 1900 #Tlingit culture, Sitka, Alaska Wood, paint, fur L 44 x W 16 x H 16 cm Smithsonian NMAI display (14/6849) #IndigenousArt #NativeAmericanArt #FirstNationsArt #BirdsInArt

composite photo of puffin bowl on display (top) and its digital info screen (bottom)
“Window on Collections: Animals
object name: Tufted puffin feast bowl culture: Tlingit
place of origin: Sitka, Alaska
date:ca. 1900
materials:Wood, paint, fur
dimensions: 44 cm. I.; 16 w.; 16 h.
catalogue #: 14/6849
[map] [object image]”

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Animal Aspects (Art History Animalia)

@animal-aspects.bsky.social

6 months ago

For #WorldBearDay 🐻: #Bear mask, 1973-4 Boyd Owle (Eastern Band of Cherokee, b. c. 1955), Cherokee, North Carolina, USA Wood, paint, metal wire Smithsonian NMAI collection #NativeAmericanArt #IndigenousArt