Jaune Quick-To-See Smith Has Died, Age 85

Artist and curator Jaune Quick-to-See Smith has died at the age of 85. From Hyperallergic’s obituary:

As part of a generation of Indigenous artists who tirelessly worked to “break the ‘buckskin ceiling’” in the art world, Smith (an enrolled Salish member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Nation) is known for a prolific arts practice that merged piercing humor and profound socio-political commentary with poetic depictions of Native American life. Her five-decade oeuvre, which spans painting, collage, drawing, print, and sculpture, is an intimate visual lexicon that bridges personal memories and joyful resilience, exemplifying her lifelong refusal to be defined by any singular narrative.

More obits: ARTnews, Artnet, The Art Newspaper.

Her art seems to me to be in conversation with Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and countless Native artists & European cave painters from millenia ago — as well as Leonardo da Vinci it seems…that marvelous painting above featuring the buffalo is called “Indian Drawing Lesson (after Leonardo)”.

You can see more of Smith’s work on her website, at The Whitney, at the Garth Greenan Gallery, the Missoula Art Museum, and at the Smithsonian.

• art
• Jaune Quick-To-See Smith
• Native Americans