Artists (selection)

Jaune Quick-To-See Smith *1940

Flathead/Cree/Shoshone

Jaune Quick-To-See Smith is one of the most acclaimed contemporary Native American artists. She was born in 1940 on the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Reservation in Montana. Smith studied art education at Framingham State College, Massachusetts, and art at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, where she earned a Master’s degree. Since the 1970s she has been creating complex, abstract paintings and lithographs that feature outspoken sociopolitical messages, addressing issues such as environmental destruction and the oppression of Native American cultures by the government. Inspired by Pablo Picasso, Paul Klee, and Robert Rauschenberg among others on the one hand and by traditional Native American art on the other, Smith views herself as a mediator between Native and western art. During the past 35 years her work has been presented at more than 100 solo exhibitions. She has also curated numerous exhibitions and been a guest lecturer at universities, museums, and conferences all over the world. Her works are found in many private and public international collections. Among other honors she has received the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters Grant, the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Women’s Caucus for the Arts, the College Art Association’s Committee on Women in the Arts Award, the New Mexico Governor’s Outstanding Woman’s Award, and the New Mexico Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts (Allan Houser Award). In addition, Smith has been awarded four honorary doctorates – from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Arts, the Massachusetts College of Art, and the University of New Mexico.

We can’t predict where we’re going in life, but we can have goals and stay focused. So you have to do what you believe in. Do what makes you feel whole and happy. Do what keeps your life in balance. (Jaune Quick-To-See Smith)