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An exquisite collection of twentieth century NativeAmerican art. "In the Spirit of the Ancestors" documents the Kappmeyercollection, an outstanding group of works celebrating excellence inpottery, kachinas, weavings, basketry, metalwork, painting, andsculpture.Against a backdrop of beautiful full-color and vintagephotographs, "In the Spirit" documents this important collection,providing fascinating introduction to Southwestern Native Americanart. Over 80 photographs illustrate more than 300 works of art, mostof which have not been previously published.From the matriarchs ofpueblo pottery to some of today's most exciting young innovators, thisis a significant document of the rare and previously unpublished workof a group of important artists. The Kappmeyer collection demonstratesthe ongoing evolution of Native American art forms; grounded intradition, but responsive to the expressive needs of contemporaryartists. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The Prehistoric Native American Art Of Mud Glyph Cave
This fascinating book was first published in 1986 by the University of Tennessee Press in a hardback edition.It is still in print today, apparently in a paperback version.

This book describes the 1980 discovery of prehistoric art in a small, East Tennessee cave.The discovery was made by two memebers of the U.S. Forest Service and the subsequent study of this site was made by anthropologists from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.The cave is heavily decorated with drawings of animals, humans, mythical (?) figures, geometric designs, and what are perhaps religious symbols.For example, the "Weeping Eye" of the Mound Builders Culture is present.Fortunately, for the reader, there are several good photos of this art.

Carbon-14 dating of charcoal found in the cave places the age of the majority of this art at approximately 800 years ago, during what anthropologists refer to as the Mississippian period, but some art may be older.

Another positive feature of the book is the description of other prehistoric art sites in the Southeast. There are good photographs of the art from these other sites.

Although the book was published by a major University, and some people might think it would be too technical in nature for the non-anthropologist to read, I found the text quite readable and very intersting.

This is a great book for people interested in prehistoric art, Native Americans, and caves.

Larry E. Matthews
Professional Geologist
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Poems, Stories, Essays, and visual arts images by contemporary Iroquois Authors. Edited by Bertha Rogers. Assistant Editors: Maurice Kenny, Tom Huff, and Robert Bensen. ... Read more

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Essays on the development of Boas' theories on primitive art and his legacy i Northwest Coast art studies offer a theoretical framework for this collectio of 14 articles written between 1889 and 1916 by the art historian and anthropologist. The articles, in which he disputes Eurocentric art theorie ... Read more

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This fully illustrated volume examines the majesty of native American mythology and artifacts and explains the designs, symbols, and history of ceremonies, totem carvings, artwork, and more. ... Read more

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Avant-garde art between 1910 and 1950 is well known for its use of "primitive" imagery, often borrowed from traditional cultures in Africa and Oceania. Less recognized, however, is the use United States artists made of Native American art, myth, and ritual to craft a specifically American Modernist art. In this ground-breaking study, W. Jackson Rushing comprehensively explores the process by which Native American iconography was appropriated, transformed, and embodied in American avant-garde art of the Modernist period. Writing from the dual perspectives of cultural and art history, Rushing shows how national exhibitions of Native American art influenced such artists and patrons as Marsden Hartley, John Sloan, Mabel Dodge Luhan, Robert Henri, John Marin, Adolph Gottlieb, Barnett Newman, and especially Jackson Pollock, whose drip paintings he convincingly links with the sand paintings of the Navajo. He traces the avant-garde adoption of Native American cultural forms to anxiety over industrialism and urbanism, post-World War I "return to roots" nationalism, the New Deal search for American strengths and values, and the notion of the "dark" Jungian unconscious current in the 1940s. ... Read more

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For more than one hundred years, tourists and residents alike have flocked to Ye Olde Curiosity Shop, located on Seattle's waterfront. Here a mummy nicknamed Sylvester, a collection of shrunken heads from Ecuador, a two-headed calf, and a mermaid preside over walls and cases crammed with an incredible jumble of souvenirs and trinkets, intermixed with authentic Northwest Coast and Alaskan Eskimo carvings, baskets, blankets, and other artworks. The guestbook records visits by Theodore Roosevelt, Will Rogers, Jack Dempsey, Charlie Chaplin, J. Edgar Hoover, Katherine Hepburn, John Wayne, Sylvester Stallone, and Queen Marie of Rumania, among many others.

Ye Olde Curiosity Shop was founded in 1899 by Joseph E. "Daddy" Standley, an Ohio-born curio collector who came to Seattle in the late 1890s during the Yukon gold rush. Although Native American material vied for space with exotica from all corners of the globe, it soon grew to be the mainstay of the shop, which became identified with the whalebones displayed outside and the "piles of old Eskimo relics" within. Also to be found were baskets, moccasins, ivory carving from Alaska, Tlingit spruce root baskets, Haida "jadeite" totem poles, masks, paddles, and other curiosities from the Northwest Coast. Indians from the Olympic Peninsula brought baskets, coming up to the back door of the shop in their canoes. Others, originally from British Columbia but now living on the flats not far from the shop, carved miniature totem poles by the hundreds and full-size poles on commission. Trading companies supplied Indian curios from the Plains, Southwest, and California.

An art historian trained in the classic arts of the Northwest Coast, Kate Duncan became interested in the history of the shop when she learned that it had not only been an active participant in Seattle's 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition but had also been a major source of important Northwest Coast collections in many museums, including, among others, the Royal Ontario Museum, the George G. Heye Collection (now in the Smithsonian's Museum of the American Indian), the Washington State Museum, the Newark Museum, the Portland Art Museum, and the American Museum of Natural History. Granted full access by the present owners-grandson and great-grandson of "Daddy" Standley-to the remarkably complete archives maintained from the time the shop opened, Duncan has provided a fascinating chapter in the history of Seattle, especially in its early years, as well as a significant contribution to the literature on tourist arts and collecting.

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Customer Reviews (1)

Fascinating!
This book was fascinating!I couldn't put it down.As a long time Seattle resident I have visited this shop on the waterfront many times.It was really intersting to read all the history and stories about this place over the years.It brought back memories of going there when I was young. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (2)

Not my cup of tea
I was hoping this book would include lots of photographs of this outstanding museum and its incredible collection. I just didn't realize this book wasn't addressing my needs or I wouldn't have bought it.Having said that, it's a goodbook for what it does cover.You just need to understand what you're buying.

THE LOGIC OF NON-RESTITUTION OF CULTURAL GOODS
THE LOGIC OF NON-RESTITUTION OF CULTURAL OBJECTS FROM THE MUSEE DU QUAI BRANLY.

I thought I had heard all the desperate arguments and explanations from European and American museum directors for not returning the stolen cultural objects which fill their museums. But on reading the recent excellent book from Sally Price, Paris Primitive: Jacques Chirac's Museum on the Quai Branly I noted the incredible explanations she received from the officials of the Musée du Quai Branly, Paris, which seem to me to be worthy of examination. Concerning the return of human remains, the author got the following remarkable explanation from Séverine Le Guével, head of the international relations at the museum:
"First, the bodies have never functioned as human remains. Secondly, they were (for the most part) given to the explorers who brought them back, not stolen or taken without permission. Plus, they're not identified. We don't know who they belong to. Thus, they've become art objects; ethnographic objects. That makes a difference. Therefore, they should be preserved like art objects and cannot be destroyed.... And it's also important to consider all objects that contain human remains. If we were to honour the claims for everything that contain human remains, it would mean giving away the entire collection of the Musee du Quai Branly anything that contains a bit of bone, anything that contains a skull...." (1)

Sally Price does not think it is really worthwhile to pursue ideas such as that there are some human remains in all the 350,000 objects in the museum. Nevertheless, I think it is at least worthwhile to ask how persons with such level of knowledge and competence reach such positions as head of international relations in the new French museum on the banks of the Seine. Little piety or respect for the dead seems to be shown by the lady who obviously has no feelings of sympathy for the relatives of those who disappeared or died in unexplained circumstances under colonial rule.
The same lady went on to add, according to the author that:
"We at the Quai Branly, as elsewhere in France, have decided to respect the principle of laicité [separation of church and state, very roughly equivalent to secularism]. Therefore, we do not take into consideration any claim based on religion or ethnicity. That's important.... We're a public institution, a secular institution operating in the public domain. If you allow the legitimacy of one religion, you allow them all, and then they all cancel each other out. That would put every place in the world on the same level!... Giving credit to all the claims would be to cancel out all of them....If you really believe that these things have a profound meaning, well the museum isn't made for that. The museum is not a religious space".

One can well sympathize with Sally Price for not wanting to spend
too many words on the substance of such statements but we must note
that these are the kind of people the Western countries have appointed as their representatives to deal with matters which are of great significance to the former colonized countries of Asia, Africa and America. Dr.Price, who is herself very sympathetic to claims of restitution, notes that in other countries these matters are dealt with
more seriously and sometimes even museums seek the advice of persons from the cultures being displayed exhibits. Further interviews of the author with more senior officials of the Musee du Quai Branly
did not reveal any better understanding of the questions of restitution
and the answers she received did not seem to differ much from those she received from the head of the international relations.
When she questioned the Director of the museum, Germain Viatte
about how the museum intended to deal with claims based on religion or ethnicity, she was informed how pleased non-Europeans were to see their cultural objects displayed in the museum; the director further declared:
"France is both universalist and secular. We need to recognize that [museum collections] belong to the history of our own country, but also to cultures that may have disappeared, or be on the way out, or hoping for cultural revival. We need to take all this into account, but without giving in to a kind of paternalism, confining other people to their particularities and reserving universalism exclusively for ourselves because we're worried about being "politically correct". We cannot give in to claims for restitution like those presented to the English for the Parthenon marbles or the Benin bronzes. But what we can do is set in motion international collaboration designed to find viable compromises between different, often incompatible interests, for example, between restitution and the protection of objects".(2)

This statement from the Director of the Musee du Quai Branly displays the same arrogance, paternalism and assumptions of superiority which we are used to hearing from other European museum directors. They assume they are rendering a great service to the countries of Asia, Africa and America by showing their stolen cultural objects in Europe. Surely, every art lover is pleased to see
an impressive piece of art displayed, whether that object is a stolen object from his or her country or from elsewhere. But does that mean
they approve of the unlawful methods the colonial masters used in acquiring these objects? Sally Price has described some of these criminal modes of acquisition in her book, Primitive Art in Civilized Places (Second Edition, 2001.The University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London). Can one accept peremptory statements such as "We cannot give in to claims for restitution like those presented to the English for the Parthenon marbles or the Benin bronzes" without even attempting to refer to their modes of acquisition? The museum director is no doubt aware of the Dakar-Djibouti expedition which through stealing, blackmail and duress, as described by Michel Leiris in L'Afrique Fantôme (1950, Paris, Gallimard), brought to France thousands of cultural objects from the French colonies. Most of these objects were inherited by the Musée du Quai Branly when it was established. The story of the establishment of this museum is well related in Paris Primitive. The French generally, and the Musée du Quai Branly in particular, have obviously decided not to talk too much
about their colonial history which throws a bad light on the museum's
inheritance from the two other museums it replaced: Musée de l'Homme and the Musée National des Arts d'Afrique et d'Océanie.
The explanation of the President of the museum as cited by Sally Price is no more enlightening that the others cited above:
" We are not in the business of buying ourselves a clear conscience vis-a vis the non-Western world or becoming an "apology museum," relaying messages based on the heritages of [cultural/ethnic] communities the way museums in Canada and the United States do for Indians. In France we have a more a more objective vision of culture. It's free of all instrumentality (nationalistic, pedagogic, etc), though it's becoming more and more difficult to defend.... In my view, the argument for returning the contents of museums to their countries of origin is a rejection, pure and simple, of the museum's calling which is to show the "Other" which means, by definition: outside of its original environment.. Art objects are also ambassadors for their culture, and in that capacity they're an element in the dialogue between peoples." (3)

After this sort of statement, one is tempted to agree with Sally Price
that it is not worth pursuing further some of these ideas. However, an exploration of the impact of some of these ideas, if they were really followed through might cause surprises.
To try to use the idea of laicité to defeat claims for return of stolen cultural property seems to me very strange. The theory of separation of State and Church/Religion was invented to prevent the interference of the State in the affairs of the church and vice-versa. It was intended to prevent State officials from dealing with matters which may have a religious element and certainly it has not been used to prevent the police from pursuing thieves who have stolen religious objects from a church or a shop. The lady at the museum did not seem to realise that in restitution claims, we are dealing with questions of ownership and not primarily with the nature of the object. Whatever the nature of the object, an alleged aggrieved the owner has the right to pursue the claim.
If it were acceptable to reject claims for restitution on the ground that they are based on religion or ethnicity, most of the claims for the return of cultural objects would be easily rejected. There are very few cultural objects which do not have religious or cultural element. If you reason like the officials of the Musée du Quai Branly, you could in the last resort point out that the artist is a Catholic or belongs to the English tribe! Hardly any African sculpture could ever be recovered from the French who have thousands of these stolen items. Obviously, such weak arguments are developed for the protection of the French museum.
Apparently similar thinking processes are shared by many of the people associated with the museum. Sally Price cites the art dealer Jean Paul Barbier, a member of the acquisition committee of the museum who also sold to the museum a number of expensive art objects, as declaring in an interview with Radio France:

"Certain anthropologists claim that an African or Oceanian who's deprived of his fetishes is a person who dies spiritually. Well, that's not true! Man is much stronger than that! If you take away a Sicilian woman's crucifix that she inherited from her grandmother, she doesn't give up her Catholic faith! She doesn't mope away in sadness. She goes to the next town, she buys a crucifix, she hangs it where the old one had been, and she returns to her prayers! (4)

It is more than depressing to read or hear such a statement coming from a dealer whose family and himself have made an enormous
fortune from dealing in African cultural objects. He is reported to have
"sold to the French State 276 Nigerian works of art for the sum of 40 million francs". (5)
So much for the respect he shows for those whose sweat and labour have made him a wealthy man. It is incredible to compare a crucifix which can be bought in any town in Italy with the magnificent African works of art which sell for millions and this comparison comes from somebody who deals in African art works! First of all, one cannot simply go to the next town and buy a sculpture or other cultural object. These pieces are often made for specific individuals within specific families in defined societies. They are not available everywhere and are not interchangeable. Their symbolism and significance are not the same. The skill, knowledge and time necessary for many African cultural works cannot be compared to those required for the crucifixes which are available in every Italian town. That a dealer in African art can make such statements shows how distorted the thinking of many Europeans can be. Obviously there are no limits for Europeans to the extent to which they can insult Africans and their culture.

Sally Price has produced a truly remarkable book on art from Africa, Asia, America and Oceania. She tells very effectively the story of the Musée du Quai Branly, from the birth of the idea to the encounter between Jacques Chirac, then President of France and Jacques Kerchache (deceased), a French dealer in African art whose character is considered dubious by many, the discussions which preceded the decision to create a new museum, the infightings and intrigues in the Parisian art scene, the construction of the building by Jean Nouvel whose role seems to have gone beyond that of an architect, the criticisms of the structure of building and the interior arrangements which seems to reflect European prejudices of Africa as a continent of darkness, and the presentation of cultural works in the museum.
Paris Primitive is a very informative and readable work by Sally Price who acknowledges her good fortune in coming from a family of writers. The writing and presentation of the book are very attractive. I wish though that she could have avoided the word "primitive" in the title of her book. She explains briefly why she sticks to such a terminology which she herself describes as "awkward and jarring."
I felt very relieved to recognize that despite the really curious arguments we usually get from Westerners when it comes to defending their illegal possession of stolen art objects in their museums, here was at least a Westerner who thought like many of us
and could understand our need for the return of our cultural objects. A Western writer who could put herself in the place of the "Other". In fact, she does this very well when commenting on the half-truths the museum writes in notes relating to the two statutes stolen by the French from the royal palace of Dahomey, the one of Glele and the other of his son, Gbehanzin. The two kings are described in the notes as bloodthirsty, beheading enemy soldiers, sowing terror and menacing the French. Sally Price comments as follows:
"It's worth noting that this story takes place on African soil, not in Europe. Had the roles been reversed - that is, had Africans attempted to conquer Paris, as in Bertène Juminer's novel La revanche de Bozambo-would the French have been portrayed as "menacing" the invading Africans? (6)
The author's overall assessment is that the museum has not fulfilled the expectations its creation had raised and that it is not "the place where cultures dialogue" as the museum likes to characterize itself. The colonial attitudes and prejudices are all too apparent. The speech in this museum is a French monologue on the arts of Africa, Asia, the Americas and Oceania. Voices from cultures displayed there are not heard. The French still claim a monopoly in interpreting those cultures. The author concludes that:
"From an early twenty-first-century perspective, the MBQ has missed precious opportunities for meaningful cultural dialogue that would have led to greater consideration of these issues. After the initial flurry of largely positive reactions in the press (many centered on the architecture), a heavy dose of negative reactions, more often questioning the museum's conceptual underpinnings, began to stream in. As one reviewer commented, new projects like this "almost always get thrashed" in Paris, but reactions to the Quai Branly have "seemed worse than most" (7).

Kwame Opoku, Vienna, 12 November, 2007.

NOTES
1) Paris Primitive: Jacques Chirac's Museum on the Quay Branly (University of Chicago Press, 2007), 224 p. at p.123.

2) Ibid. 124.

3) Ibid. 125.

4) Ibid. 156.

5) Ibid.p.75.
6) Ibid. 159.
7) Ibid.177.
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Book Description
Presenting concise overviews of artists and movements that are uniquely American, these volumes distill the essence of their subjects with authoritative texts and lavish illustrations.

Art, religion, and everyday function are invariably and naturally co-mingled in the beautiful and useful objects created by the native populations of North America. This full-color book provides a unique look at the rich variety of Native American art created from centuries ago to the present day. ... Read more

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Native American Rock Art takes young readers on a fascinating journey into the world of people whose petroglyphs and pictographs still mark canyon walls, rock outcroppings, and caves across North America.Thoroughly researched original illustrations and detailed full-color photographs enhance this rich introduction to the art of the first Americans, who carved and painted their symbols on stone beginning thousands of years ago. ... Read more

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Contents:Why Are Native Americans (Still) Called "Indians"?The Illuminating Example of Giovanni di Paolo’s Quattrocento Mappamundi(Moffitt)

Between Science and Art: The European Representation of America, 1500–1800 (Polleroß)

"Een West-Indien Landtschap met Vreemt Ghebouw": Jan Mostaert on the Architectural Primitivism Characterizing a "Golden Age" Reborn in the New World (Moffitt)

Cooper, Cole, and The Last of the Mohicans(Parry)

Carpeaux’s America: Art and Sculptural Politics (Miller)

Nineteenth-Century Haida Argillite Carvings: Documents of Cultural Encounter (Wright)

"Maids of Palastine": Pueblo Pots, Potters, and the Politics of Representation (Babcock)

Art and Indian Culture at the Crossroads of a New Century: A Postlude to the Exhibition "Lost and Found Traditions: Native American Art, 1965–1985" (Coe)

The Collection of the North and Central American Department of the Museum fur Volkerkunde, Vienna (van Bussel) ... Read more

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Discusses what turquoise is, where it's found, the types of jewelry made from it, and why the jewelry is important to Native American cultures. Includes a craft project. ... Read more

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George Wharton James once commented that the basket to the Indian "meant a work of art, in which hope, aspiration, desire, love, religion, poetry, national pride, mythology, were all more or less interwoven." The first major study of the subject since 1904, this book presents essays written by those intimately familiar with the basket makers and basketry of North America. Illustrated with approximately 80 black-and-white photographs--many of which are historical records of basketry--Native American Basketry uses archaeological, ethnographic, historical and contemporary information in discussing the changes in native basketry from prehistoric times to the present. ... Read more