68 Diker Collection NEW YORK—The Charles and Valerie Diker Collection is one of the world’s most outstanding and comprehensive private collections of Native American art. With artworks ranging in date from the second to the early twentieth century, it celebrates the achievements of artists from culturally distinct indigenous traditions across the North American continent. These works refl ect the unique and innovative visions of their makers in an expansive array of aesthetic forms and media. They have generously been part of a longterm national touring exhibition under the title of Indigenous Beauty, organized by the American Federation of Arts, the fi nal stop of which is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, somewhat reconfi gured and under the new title of Native American Masterpieces from the Charles and Valerie Diker Collection. It can be seen there until March 19, 2017. ABOVE: Large basket with checkerboard patterning. Ndeh (Apache), Southwest. C. 1890. Willow, devil’s claw, Joshua tree root. H: 55.9 cm. Michael C. Carlos Museum, anonymous gift, inv. 2015.037.001. © Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University. Photo: Bruce M. White, 2015. MUSEUM news BELOW LEFT: Dress and belt with awl case. Wasco, Columbia River region, Oregon or Washington. C. 1870. Hide, glass, shell, bone, teeth, metal. H: 132.1. Collection of Charles and Valerie Diker (459). Image © Charles and Valerie Diker Collection. Photo: Dirk Bakker. LEFT: Twelve high-ranking Kiowa men (detail), by Artist B from the Julian Scott Ledger. Kiowa, Kiowa and Comanche Indian Reservation, Oklahoma. 1880. Pencil, colored pencil, and ink on paper. 19.1 × 30.5 cm. Collection of Charles and Valerie Diker (059LD). Image © Charles and Valerie Diker Collection. Photo: Dirk Bakker. Man’s shirt. Nimi’pou (Nez Perce), Oregon or Idaho. C. 1850. Hide, quill, horsehair, sinew, wool, glass, pigment. W: 154.1 cm. Collection of Charles and Valerie Diker (666). Image © Charles and Valerie Diker Collection. Photo: Dirk Bakker. Coiling Culture ATLANTA—That baskets were one of the earliest art forms in the Americas is attested to by basket fragments found in California and the Southwest dating back nearly ten thousand years. Over the millennia, native North Americans developed elaborate techniques and intricate designs worked in local materials, from sweetgrass in Florida to black ash in the Northeast and deer grass in California, among many others. These materials were sacred to their makers and to those who used these special containers. So too was the way each basket was made. Coiling, in particular, was especially poignant, symbolizing for many groups the path of human emergence from inside earth and the movement of the spirits between realms. A new installation in the Art of the Americas galleries of the Michael C. Carlos Museum explores the intersection between material, making, and meaning in the fragile basketry art originating in the Southeast to the Southwest and as far north as the Arctic. Titled Coiling Culture: Basketry Art of Native North America, the exhibition can be seen until August 26, 2018. LEFT: Dagger. Tlingit, Alaska. C. 1750. Iron, hair, plant fiber, hide, wool. H: 47 cm. Collection of Charles and Valerie Diker (610). Image © Charles and Valerie Diker Collection. Photo: Dirk Bakker.
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