Available:*
Library | Material Type | Call Number | Child Count | Shelf Location | Status | Item Holds |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Searching... Central | Book | 759.189 BERNSTEIN | 1 | Stacks | Searching... Unknown | Searching... Unavailable |
Searching... Science | Book | AMIND E 78 .N65 B38 1995 | 1 | Third floor history docs | Searching... Unknown | Searching... Unavailable |
Searching... Science | Book | 759.18956 B458MO, 1995 | 1 | Stacks | Searching... Unknown | Searching... Unavailable |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
Kansas-born educator Dorothy Dunn established the country's first Indian art school, thus ushering in the flat-art style by which Native American painters have been celebrated as the first modernists. Reproduced here are more than ninety paintings by prominent artists such as Pablita Velarde, Joe H. Herrera, Allan Houser, and Pop Chalee.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
This jewel-like showcase of Native American paintings features works by students of Dorothy Dunn, Kansas-born schoolteacher and curator, who, though an outsider, absorbed Navajo and Pueblo ways and established the country's first Indian art school. At the Studio, the fine-arts program she founded in 1932 at the federal government's Santa Fe Indian School, Dunn promoted the ``modern flat-art'' style featuring clearly outlined, bright forms rhythmically linked in a seemingly dimensionless yet narrative space. Ranging in age from 11 to 21, her students drew on tribal symbolism, pottery motifs, rock art and wall-painting traditions to create pictures of great charm, intricate beauty and surprising power, whether depicting wild horses, a wedding, ritual dances, women stripping birch bark, or hunters. Dunn, who directed the Studio until 1937, encouraged her pupils to portray their lives authentically as members of specific cultures-Hopi, Kiowa, Apache, etc.-and many of them became prominent artists, including Joe H. Herrera, Geronima Cruz Montoya, Oscar Howe and Pablita Velarde. An exhibition of 98 paintings from the Dunn collection, which will travel nationally, was co-curated by Bernstein, chief curator at Santa Fe's Museum of Indian Arts and Culture. Rushing is art history professor at the University of Missouri. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Choice Review
In 1932, Dorothy Dunn opened the Studio of the Santa Fe Indian School and began to teach painting to Native American students; many of them became well-known artists who influenced subsequent generations. In 1992 Dunn's papers were donated to the Museum of New Mexico. Using these papers and previously donated paintings, Bernstein and Rushing present a history of the studio. They point out that at a time when Native Americans were being told they had to give up traditional ways, Dunn encouraged her students to produce art in the ancient tradition. In his analysis of the paintings, Rushing discusses how Dunn's students accomplished this. Unlike some present-day artists and art historians who claim that Dunn's teaching resulted in romanticized pictures of tribal subjects (see J.J. Brody's Indian Painters & White Patrons, CH, Sep'71), Bernstein and Rushing conclude that she was instrumental in developing a genuine American art. By combining the new information on Dunn and her goals with a thorough examination of the paintings, the authors have provided an exciting, fresh look at an important period in American art. All levels. M. J. Schneider University of North Dakota
Library Journal Review
Fresh from the Art Institute of Chicago in 1932, Dorothy Dunn founded the Fine Art Studio at the Santa Fe Indian School. After five years and many bureaucratic struggles, she passed the leadership to Geronima Cruz Montoya, a former student, who continued the effort for another 25 years. Dunn encouraged her young students, mostly in their teens, to paint from everyday life with a keen awareness of the Southwest Native American past. Exposure to contemporary art and modern materials added to an eventual blend of old and new, a traditional modernism. Dunn's methods have been criticized as patronizing, despite worldwide acclaim for the work specifically and for former students who became professionals generally. Art lovers and historians can judge for themselves in this visually stunning book produced by art historian Rushing and Museum of Indian Arts and Culture assistant director Bernstein. Best suited for large public libraries and American art history collections.Susan M. Olcott, Columbus Metropolitan Lib., Ohio (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.