Lucy Fowler Williams

The Barnes Foundation's historic Pueblo and Navajo collections are explored alongside works by contemporary Native American artists This richly illustrated book makes the Barnes Foundation's exceptional collection of Native American art from the Southwest available to the public for the first time. Collector and educator Albert C. Barnes traveled to the U.S. Southwest in 1930 and 1931 and, deeply impressed by the generative art practices he saw there, formed a collection of Pueblo and Navajo pottery, textiles, and jewelry. Water, Wind, Breath illuminates the materials, forms, and designs of the objects as they relate to Pueblo and Navajo histories and ideas. The book blends postcolonial and Indigenous perspectives, introducing readers to living artistic traditions filled with purpose, intention, and a deeply embedded spirituality that connects places, practices, and Native identities. Works by contemporary Native American artists are juxtaposed with historic pieces, illuminating the connections between heritage traditions and modern practices.

Southwest Native Art in the Barnes Foundation

Water, Wind, Breath

University of Pennsylvania. Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology

Totaling approximately 40,000 objects, the University Museum's ethnographic holdings represent native peoples from ten North American culture areas—the Arctic, Subarctic, Northwest Coast, California, Plateau, Great Basin, Southwest, Great Plains, Northeast, and the Southeast. This guide highlights the strength of the collections and demonstrates how objects are tied to history and people living within different cultural and social contexts. It also underscores that objects have different multiple meanings. Some objects illustrate intertribal relations; others best reflect collecting attitudes at the turn of the century when much of the Museum's collections was acquired. Visitors and off-site readers will learn about such related archival resources as documentation and photographs, past and present Museum exhibitions, current research, repatriation, and contemporary collections development.

Lucy Fowler Williams

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