An incredible basket in the main gallery!  An Amerind Treasure

Found in 1910 by a 10 year old boy in southeast Arizona, close to the Mexican border, this basket was recently donated to the Amerind by the family of local historian Mary Magoffin (1927-2007).

Although we will probably never know for sure, we think this basket was made by a Chiricahua Apache.

You will find the basket and the rest of the story in the main downstairs gallery of the Amerind.

We are in the process of making changes to the exhibit "Images in Time and Place" in the main gallery of the Museum. We are putting up maps and photographs to give more context to the cultural areas, and changing some of the material items on display.

On Going

The richness and diversity of Amerind’s collections can be seen in our exhibits. Occasionally a visitor will ask where we get all these objects. Almost all of the items in our exhibits come out of our collections. They come from Amerind’s archaeological excavations, or were purchased by Amerind’s founder, his family, and the different directors over the years. Some objects have been donated by family, friends, colleagues, and other interested individuals. Exhibitions give us a chance to bring out the best.

Images in Time and Place

A permanent exhibition is installed in the principal gallery of the Museum, which displays objects from the Amerind’s collection in some 1,600 square feet of display area. "Images" refers to figurative (human, animal, and even plant motifs) expressions in the material culture of Native Americans. "Time" includes objects from prehistoric, historic, and contemporary contexts, and also suggests that the dynamics of history have a part to play in our understanding of different Native cultures. "Place" encourages us to think about the landscape and the environment of the cultures represented, along with the opportunities and constraints they may offer. The exhibition presents the richness of figurative design in such diverse media as textiles, organic fibers, clay, stone, wood, ivory, metal, beads, and leather. This exhibit takes the viewer from the Arctic down to the southwest on the ethnographic side of the gallery and from the bottom of South America to the American southwest on the archaeological side.

Timeline Hallway

Down the hallway, connecting the two galleries on the first floor, are exhibit cases showing a time-line of prehistoric human occupation in the southwest. Here visitors will see wonderful artifacts from the time of the Paleo-Indians, the Archaic period, and up to the three primary cultural areas of the early farmers: Hohokam, Mogollon, and Ancestral Pueblos (formerly referred to as "Anasazi").

Amerind Archaeology Room

Welcome to the room showcasing the archaeological work done by the Amerind over the years. Here you’ll find information, interpretation, and artifacts from founder William Shirley Fulton’s early explorations on the Amerind property, and his work at Painted Cave with noted southwest archaeologist, Emil Haury. The excavations of Charles Di Peso (Amerind’s director from 1952 to his passing in 1982) fill out most of the remainder of the room, including displays of his important work at Casas Grandes (Paquimé) in Chiuhuahua, Mexico, 1958 -1961, and his excavations along the San Pedro (Terranate) and the Santa Cruz rivers (Paloparado).

This room contains a wonderful diversity of material items from long ago. Most remarkable, are the fragile objects made of organic materials between 800 to1600 years ago, such as baskets, sandals, cordage of human hair, and cloth, which we have today only because they were left in a dry cave with superior preservation properties.

Ethnology Room

The main gallery upstairs contains impressive ethnographic items from various areas of North America. Part of the room is dedicated to the Apache culture, and on display are some wonderful baskets, a bow made and signed by Geronimo, a set of Apache rawhide playing cards, plus many other items, along with information and interpretation about the different Apache tribes and groups, Geronimo’s surrender, and the resulting confinement of all the Chiricahua Apaches.

The Navajo (Diné) are closely related to the Apaches, and we have a small case with Diné items, mostly jewelry. We will be bringing more Diné objects into the exhibit area in the future.

The Ethnology Room also contains some wonderful examples of beadwork by various Native people, an exhibit of fetishes, cradle boards, Navajo concho belts, pipes, and various Santos and other religious artifacts, mostly from northern New Mexico.

Interwoven Traditions: The Cultural Legacy Of Southwestern Textiles

Across from the Ethnology Room you will find our newest exhibit. This exhibit features some of the beautiful rugs and other textiles in Amerind's collection. It is a feast for the eyes and in these two rooms you will see some real treasures from Navajo, Hopi, Tarahumara, Rio Grande, and other weavers. Diné masterweaver, Barbara Teller Ornelas, joined with Amerind's curator, Eric Kaldahl, to choose the textiles to place on exhibit. The exhibit will be up for 2 years, but you'll need to come back more often since most of the the textiles will be rotated out and replaced with other pieces approximately every 6 months.

Upstairs in a small exhibit space you will find the new exhibit Hopi "Tithu" (or Katsina Dolls): A Changing Art Form. This exhibit gave us the perfect opportunity to bring out two impressive katsinas exquisitively carved by a master carver, Arthur Holmes, Jr.  These katsinas were donated to the Amerind by a long time friend in honor of her husband. Also on exhibit is a traditionally carved katsina by Ramson Lomatewama as well as two additional carvings from Amerind's collection.

Traditions in Clay

An exhibition of Pueblo pottery ranging from late prehistoric ancestral ceramics to modern pieces. Pueblo pottery developed in prehistoric times from simple utility jars to intricately textured and painted wares. The art form was revived with the advent of the railroad and the arrival of tourists in the Southwest in the 1880s. Contemporary Pueblo potters still use centuries-old techniques of construction and are inspired by pottery forms and designs a millennium or more old.

The Mata Ortiz Gallery

This room contains two exhibits: The Potters of Mata Ortiz: Inspired by the Past…Creating Traditions for the Future, and A Pottery Competition!

The first exhibit explores the connection between the pottery of the prehistoric town of Casas Grandes (Paquimé) in Chihuahua, Mexico, and the contemporary pottery tradition, often referred to as a "pottery phenomenon," of the nearby village of Mata Ortiz.

The second exhibit illustrates Amerind’s early involvement with the community of Mata Ortiz. It was 1978 when noted Mata Ortiz supporter, Spencer MacCallum, stopped by the Amerind to ask Charles Di Peso, Amerind’s director, if the Foundation would be willing to support a competition for the potters of Mata Ortiz. Production was booming in Mata Ortiz and Spencer saw the competition as a way to encourage high quality work. Di Peso agreed and Spencer brought several truck-loads of pots, while Di Peso selected the judges and made the arrangements. The judges picked out the winners and Spencer returned with the pots, and with ribbons and prizes to award the winners at a community festival. The exhibit features photographs from the judging and the awards ceremony, along with pots by some of the winners and from other Mata Ortiz potters working around the same time.

The Fulton-Hayden Memorial Art Gallery

The Fulton-Hayden Memorial Art Gallery was built in the mid 1950s to house the Fulton family’s art collection. Rose Hayden Fulton, the wife of Amerind’s founder, William Shirley Fulton, played an important part in collecting the fine art that now fills the gallery.

One gallery space is dedicated to changing exhibits of Native art. Shows are usually displayed for six months to one year. In the past, we have mounted exhibits by Harrison Begay, Beatien Yazz and other Navajo artists associated with the "Studio Style" of painting; Mike Chiago and the late Leonard Chana, both Tohono O’odham artists; Melanie Yazzie (Diné); Mike Zillioux (Akimel O’odham); Terrol Dew Johnson (Tohono O’odham); Bunky Echo-Hawk (Pawnee/Yakima) and more recently, "Our People, Our Land, Our Images," an exhibit of work by 26 International Indigenous Photographers.

In the Changing Gallery

The Art of Emmi Whitehorse exhibit has recently been installed. Whitehorse, a Navajo (Diné) artist, uses oil and chalk pastel on paper mounted on canvas for her work in this exhibit. The artist grew up on the Navajo Reservation at Crownpoint, NM. As a child she spent a great deal of time tending sheep and helping her mother gather plants to dye the wool, and the influences of the land, the light, the complex patterns of the plants and the ground can be seen in her impressive and captivating landscapes. Visually, the canvases are balanced and exciting when looked at from a distance and are evocative of the vastness of the western landscape, but they also have the power to draw the viewer in close, to captivate one in the small, intimate details of the microcosmos. Join us for the opening celebration of the exhibit on Saturday, Oct. 15 at 1:30p.m.

Permanent Exhibits in the Art Gallery

The remaining rooms in the art gallery are filled with important works of art. Paintings in the largest gallery space have a western or southwestern theme, and include works by such artists as William Leigh, Carl Oscar Borg, and Frederic Remington. There is a portrait room with paintings of the founder, his wife and other Fulton family members. A variety of other paintings and sculptures by nineteenth and twentieth-century American artists are displayed, as well as furnishings spanning the seventeenth through twentieth centuries, along with a collection of exquisite scrimshaw and ivory carvings.

Thanks to the help of Tucson's Friends of Western Art some our pieces in the large gallery have been taken down for restoration work. The largest painting you see in the photo above, In a Bad Fix by William R. Leigh is one of the paintings that is currently undergoing restoration. Thanks to a private lender the empty space has been handsomely filled with Rainbow Plateau by American artist, Wilson Hurley.

Also in the Art Gallery, Conserving Amerind's Fine Arts, an exhibit about the recent conservation work undertaken by the Linda Morris Studio in Tucson and made possible by the "Friends of Western Art", a Tucson-based organization of Western Art enthusiasts.