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the museums received a substantial donation
from Thomas Weisel of more than two-hundred
works of Native American art. The collection
spans more than eight hundred years and represents
an anthology of masterpieces by indigenous
artists. This generous gift transformed the
Fine Arts Museums’ holdings and allows for a
broad exploration and presentation of Native
American art.3
Native Artists of Western North America
highlights the museums’ enriched collections.
The display encompasses incredibly diverse peoples
and places, and the works on view reveal
the aesthetic sensibilities and technical mastery
of the artists who made them. They also reflect
the relationship between the artists’ practice and
their environment, revealing a deep understanding
of and long-term relationship with the natural
world. Potters transform the earth into clays
and pigments and weavers gather fiber from
plants and animals, careful to preserve resources
for the following season. Carvers search for
trees that will yield strong, even wood that can
FIG. 3 (above): Installation
view of Native Artists of
Western North America
showing Northwest Coast
and Southwest displays.
Image courtesy of the Fine Arts
Museums of San Francisco.
and advocated for the formation of a museum
following the closure of the fair. A selection of
artworks and curios exhibited at the exposition
was purchased with profits from the event and
was installed in the fair’s Fine Arts Building, the
only structure that was built to permanent construction
standards. The charter collection included
paintings and sculptures, natural history
specimens, and “relics” from Alaska, Oceania,
and North America.1
Throughout the twentieth century, the museums’
holdings of Native American art were
largely comprised of California baskets. In
2005, the inauguration of the new de Young indirectly
stimulated the growth of the collection,
a trend that has continued in the decade since
the building opened. The first major gift of Native
American art came in 2007 when the estate
of Thomas G. Fowler donated nearly four hundred
exemplary works from the Arctic Circle
(fig. 1). Later that year, Paul E. and Barbara H.
Weiss gave thirty-two pieces of Pueblo pottery
from the American Southwest (fig. 2).2 In 2013,