Philadelphia’s Barnes Foundations Exhibits its Collection of Native American Art

The Philadelphia Inquirer recently ran a news story about the Barnes Foundation, located on Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia is exhibiting its collection of  Native American art for the first time (long overdue, yes?) An excerpt says:

“The ‘project’ is the first exhibition in Barnes Foundation history highlighting the collection of Native art built by Albert C. Barnes from 1929 to about 1931.

“In addition to its own holdings, the Barnes will be showcasing the artwork of 27 contemporary Native artists, such as Naataanii, and a handful of much older Native objects from the Penn Museum.

“’Water, Wind, Breath: Southwest Native Art in Community’ opens at the Barnes Feb. 20 for a run through May 15.

“’This is the first show of our centennial year,’ said Barnes associate curator Cindy Kang. ‘For us, this is pretty significant because it’s a show that both looks retrospectively back on our past and the formation of our collections and history of the Barnes, while also looking towards the future; this is the kind of show and these are the kinds of stories that we would like to tell in our exhibition program.’

“The collection of 239 objects, encompassing Pueblo and Navajo pottery, textiles, and jewelry, is not well-known, despite the fact that Barnes installed the textiles largely on the second floor of his Merion gallery, where they eventually kept watch over the Matisse mural, The Dance, commissioned by Barnes.”

Read the entire article

https://www.inquirer.com/arts/barnes-foundation-native-american-art-exhibition-20220216.html.

thanks to Soror Amy for the tip!

Frater Lux Ad Mundi

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