120
FIG. 2 (below): Headdress
frontlet. Tsimshian, British
Columbia. C. 1820–1840.
Wood, abalone shell, pigment, nails.
H: 17.8 cm.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art,
New York, the Charles and Valerie
Diker Collection of Native American
Art, promised gift of Charles and
Valerie Diker, inv. L.2018.35.81.
FIG. 3 (right):
Valerie and Charles Diker,
2015.
Photo courtesy of Valerie and
Charles Diker.
FIG. 4 (far right):
Tunic and leggings.
Tlingit, Alaska. C. 1890.
Cedar bark, mountain sheep wool,
dye. Tunic, H: 119.4 cm; leggings,
H: 38.1 cm.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art,
New York, the Charles and Valerie
Diker Collection of Native American
Art, promised gift of Charles and
Valerie Diker, inv. L.2018.35.40a–c.
FIG. 1 (left): Comb.
Tlingit, Alaska. C. 1860.
Wood, pigment. H: 8.9 cm.
On loan from the Charles and
Valerie Diker Collection.
Photo courtesy of the
Metropolitan Museum of Art.
the material is presented “as American art rather
than tribal art.” The generous long-term installation
of one hundred and sixteen objects consisting
of promised gifts, donations, and loans
from the Dikers refl ects their belief in the potential
of these objects to broaden historical, cultural,
and aesthetic understanding. The exhibition
also embodies what the couple has achieved not
only as collectors and stewards of Native American
artistic treasures but as true connoisseurs.
Max Hollein, the Met’s new director, recently
commented, “The presentation in the American
Wing of these exceptional works by Indigenous
artists marks a critical moment in which conventional
narratives of history are being expanded
to acknowledge and celebrate the contributions
of cultures that have long been marginalized.
The extraordinary gift of the Diker Collection
has forever transformed the Met’s ability to
more fully display the development of American
art, enabling an important shift in thinking.”
Reconsidering American Art
By Gaylord Torrence
October 4, 2018, marked a significant
milestone at the Metropolitan Museum of
Art in New York. On that day, historical Native
American art took its place in the museum’s
American Wing in a new installation, Art of
Native America: The Charles and Valerie Diker
Collection. The presentation represents the fi rst
signifi cant display of Native art ever to be installed
in the American Wing, which has been
devoted to Euro-American art since it was established
in 1924.
Driven in large part by New York collectors
and philanthropists Charles and Valerie Diker,
this initiative is particularly important in that
Native art has not been relegated to its own gallery
but instead is now presented on an equal
footing with Euro-American painting, sculpture,
and decorative arts, together forming a complete
panorama of the arts from the North American
continent. As the Dikers succinctly described it,
Charles and Valerie Diker
TRIBAL people