A Strange Mixture: The Art and Politics of Painting Pueblo Indians (The Charles M. Russell Center Series on Art and Photography of the American West Series)

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Attracted to the wealthy ceremonial life and unique architecture of the New Mexico pueblos, many early-twentieth-century artists depicted Pueblo peoples, places, and culture in paintings. These artists’ encounters with Pueblo Indians fostered their awareness of Native political struggles and led them to sign up for with Pueblo communities to champion Indian rights. On this book, art historian Sascha T. Scott examines the ways during which non-Pueblo and Pueblo artists advocated for American Indian cultures by confronting one of the most cultural, legal, and political issues of the day.

Scott closely examines the work of five diverse artists, exploring how their art was once shaped by and helped to shape Indian politics. She places the art throughout the context of the interwar period, 1915–30, a time when federal Indian policy shifted away from forced assimilation and toward preservation of Native cultures. Through careful analysis of paintings by Ernest L. Blumenschein, John Sloan, Marsden Hartley, and Awa Tsireh (Alfonso Roybal), Scott shows how their depictions of thriving Pueblo life and rituals promoted cultural preservation and challenged the pervasive romanticizing theme of the “vanishing Indian.” Georgia O’Keeffe’s images of Pueblo dances, which connect abstraction with lived experience, testify to the legacy of these political and aesthetic transformations.

Scott makes use of anthropology, history, and indigenous studies in her art historical narrative. She is among the first scholars to deal with varied responses to issues of cultural preservation by aesthetically and culturally diverse artists, including Pueblo painters. Beautifully designed, this book features nearly sixty works of art reproduced in full color.

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