Art History : A brief history of Native American art
Native American art is the art, artwork of American Indians. These peoples are also known as Indigenous peoples, Native Americans, Amerindians of North America. I include both Canada and the United States of America. There are at least five hundred tribes in America. Each tribe’s style of doing artwork is unique to its tribe. There is no one style. However, there are similarities. The emphasis is on celebrating Amerindian culture and especially its relationship to the earth and nature. If I wrote on the artistic styles of every single tribe this would most likely not be an article. It would be a good sized book. I won’t be writing on non Native American painters such as Catlin and others who painted these peoples are their subjects.
The Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990 insists Native American artists to b e certified as Indians before they can claim they are creating authentic American Indian artwork. This goes for paintings, crafts including jewelry, weavings, other textiles etc. This is to guarantee when somebody purchases a work by somebody who states they are Amerindian, they truly are Amerindian.
Over fifty years earlier, in 1935 the “Indian Arts and Crafts Board” was begun as part of the Dept. of the Interior. The purpose of this organization was to encourage and promote Indian persons to create craft cooperatives. It was to help authenticate the sold were created by Native Americans and not by anybody else. It helped start marketing networks too.
From these two previous paragraphs it is established the United States government held a role in Native American arts and crafts. This role I am certain was and is considered paternalistic by the Native Peoples who live in the US. On the one hand these governmental organizations were formed as a sincere gesture to help American Indians sell their paintings, crafts and more. Conversely it does seem somewhat paternalistic to me. I would imagine to many of the Indians too.
