New Installation Spanning the Americas Features Objects From the Southwest Museum of the American Indian Collection at the Autry in Griffith Park Now on View
The Autry National Center’s lobby now features an exquisite installation highlighting notable objects from the Southwest Museum of the American Indian Collection, representing Indigenous cultures from Alaska to Brazil. Some of the items displayed were made by prominent artists, such as Maria Martinez, who is credited with creating the innovative blackware ceramic style. Other items, such as a tobacco pipe given by Sitting Bull to Buffalo Bill, belonged to known historical figures. The thirty-one objects range from an ancient basket dating back to 500 BC to a contemporary ceramic from 2007.
“The Southwest Museum of the American Indian Collection is one of America’s premier collections of Native American art and artifacts. It has long been our goal to display this remarkable collection at the Autry in Griffith Park so that the community has the opportunity to see and experience firsthand the history of America’s Indigenous peoples. Most importantly, the Autry is visited by over 50,000 LAUSD students every year who now can see with their own eyes these historical and remarkable pieces,” commented Daniel Finley, President and CEO of the Autry National Center.
The 11-feet-tall by 9-feet-wide case is prominently positioned at the entrance to the Autry, next to the Visitor Services Desk. The first set of artifacts encountered by visitors, it features an open-collections-style presentation allowing the objects to be seen from various angles, including from below. Other objects include intricate baskets, decorative ceramics, beaded moccasins, elaborate cradleboards, various masks, and folk art.
“This assemblage represents some of the finest pieces in the Southwest Museum of the American Indian Collection. It also demonstrates the collection’s enormous depth and breadth of Indigenous material culture. Ranging from across the Americas, it is genuinely hemispheric in scope,” said Steven Karr, Director and Ahmanson Curator, Southwest Museum of the American Indian.
Highlights include (by date):
Ancestral Puebloan (Anasazi) basket, 500 BC–AD 500. Recovered from a dry cave in southern Utah, this 1,500- to 2,500-year-old basket remains in excellent condition.
Ceramic pre-Columbian female figure from Nayarit, Mexico, circa 100 BC–AD 250, from the Protoclassic period
French or American tomahawk pipe used by the Crow, early 1800s
Catlinite pipe bowl used by Hunkpapa Lakota Sioux Chief Sitting Bull, 1876–1881. Given by Sitting Bull to Buffalo Bill
Cree velvet cradleboard, circa 1900
Haida basket hat with ten rings belonging to a high-ranking member of the tribe, circa 1907
Kiowa deerskin moccasins, circa 1910
Jar by Maria Martinez (1881–1980, San Ildefonso Pueblo), 1920–1925. Martinez is often credited with creating the innovative blackware ceramic style.
Headdress from the Amazonian tribe Wayana Aparai (Brazil), 1970s–1980s
Raven spirit mask by Vitesha (Yu’pik), circa 1988
Carved Inupiaq ivory or bone double-hoop miniature spirit mask with attached baleen, feathers, and horse hair, made by John Kokuluk of King Island, Alaska, 1991
Chochiti Pueblo / San Felipe Pueblo ceramic storyteller crawling with twenty-two children, made by Dena Suina, 1991–2007. Each child is engaged in a unique activity, ranging from reading to playing the drums.
About the Autry National Center
The Autry National Center is an intercultural history center dedicated to exploring and sharing the stories, experiences, and perceptions of the diverse peoples of the American West. Located in Griffith Park, the Autry includes the collections of the Museum of the American West, the Southwest Museum of the American Indian, and the Autry Institute’s two research libraries: the Braun Research Library and the Autry Library. Exhibitions, public programs, K–12 educational services, and publications are designed to examine critical issues of society, offering insights into solutions and the contemporary human condition through the Western historical experience.
Weekday hours of operation for the Autry National Center’s museum at its Griffith Park location are Tuesday through Friday, 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. The Autry Store’s weekday hours are Tuesday through Friday, 10:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and the Golden Spur Cafe is open Tuesday through Sunday, 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday hours for the museum and the Autry Store are 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. The museum, the Autry Store, and the cafe are closed on Mondays. The libraries are open to researchers by appointment.
Museum admission is $10 for adults, $6 for students and seniors 60+, $4 for children ages 3–12, and free for Autry members, veterans, and children age 2 and under. Admission is free on the second Tuesday of every month
Image: Tlingit rattle, early 1900s. Leather, copper, shell, wood. The Frederick Hastings Rindge Memorial Collection, Gift of Mrs. Rhoda Rindge Adamson, Southwest Museum of the American Indian Collection, Autry National Center; 980.G.131
theautry.org
