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MUSEUM NEWS 68 John Stuart MINNEAPOLIS—Period rooms have long been a staple of art museum installations. Evoking a general time and place, they allow artworks and decorative arts to be displayed in a situation akin to their original context. More than a century ago, the Minneapolis Institute of Art was the fi rst museum in the U.S. to install period rooms. Research revealed that its 1772 dining and drawing rooms from Charleston, South Carolina, came from the home of Colonel John Stuart, who had been Commissioner of Indian Affairs for the southern colonies. He was also owner of some 200 slaves and father to a half-Cherokee son. In a recent reinstallation, Minneapolis opted to use these rooms to tell the tale of their specifi c past. The new installation addresses not only Stuart but also the Africans and Native Americans who were the source of his wealth. Artworks on display include artifacts related to Stuart, such as a scrimshaw powder horn depicting the 1765 Indian Congress, and others representative of Native life and cultural exchange, including a Cherokee beaded bandoleer bag. Contemporary artworks and video round out the story. LEFT: Fort Reno ledger book. Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho. 1887. Gilcrease Museum, inv. 4526.11.041. fi rearms around 1720 from French fur traders based in the Great Lakes area, gave the Plains peoples the mobility and the armaments needed to create a food surplus based primarily on buffalo hunting. This food surplus in turn gave the Plains tribes the leisure time to create and excel in artistic expression. Some of the fi nest Plains art of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries can be found in the vast collection of the Gilcrease, which holds some 25,000 ethnographic items, many of which refl ect the height of nineteenthcentury Plains cultural and artistic achievement. BELOW: Cradleboard. Great Plains. Wood, buckskin, sinew, glass beads, thread, copper alloy, iron tacks, twine, cloth, rawhide. Gilcrease Museum, inv. 8426.628. RIGHT: Sandra Okuma (b. 1945), purse. Late 20th or early 21st century. Shoshone-Bannock/ Luiseño, California. Private collection. Photo courtesy of the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian. FAR RIGHT: Flat bag. Columbia River Plateau. C. 1930. Private collection. Photo courtesy of the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian. A Universe of Meaning SANTA FE—The Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian will present Beads: A Universe of Meaning. The exhibition traces the history of imported glass beads as a medium of exchange, artistic expression, and identity for indigenous peoples throughout North America. It features garments, articles of adornment, and works of art dating from circa 1850 to the present, and it examines the ways in which makers of beadwork have simultaneously sustained tradition, engaged with popular culture, and developed a uniquely native art form. The exhibition will be on view until April 15, 2018. ABOVE: Drum. Yanktonai Sioux, Great Plains. John R. Stuart Collection, inv JS.715. Photo courtesy of the Gilcrease Museum. Created in Community TULSA—At the Gilcrease Museum until August 27, 2017, Plains Indian Art: Created in Community explores the unparalleled talent of certain individuals and the special role of Plains artists within their communities. It highlights Plains art as an expression of cultural tradition and community vibrancy, focusing specifi - cally on generational change in style and function and the innovative techniques used by various artists. In doing so, it explores how art is created within Native American communities as well as the shifting cultural meanings of certain artistic expressions while also recognizing different approaches—including those of curators, historians, and artists—to understanding Native American art. In the second and third quarters of the nineteenth century, Plains Indian culture reached a zenith of artistic expression and development. The reintroduction of the horse shortly after 1680, when the Spanish territory formed in the south, and the introduction of


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