Collection News at the Grinnell College Museum of Art
Celebrate 40,000 Years of American Art, an important work by Native American artist Jaune Quick-to-See Smith (b. 1940, citizen of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Nation), was recently added to the Grinnell College Museum of Art’s permanent collection. The work was purchased with the Marie-Louise and Samuel R. Rosenthal Fund and the Christopher McKee and Kay Wilson Purchase Fund.
Celebrate 40,000 Years of American Art is a large-scale (79 x 54 in.) collagraph which was printed in 1995 at the Washington University Collaborative Printmaking Workshop with master printer Kevin Garber. The print was acquired from Maryanne Ellison Simmons, who assisted Garber and Quick-to-See-Smith in the printmaking process. The work acquired by GCMoA is unique in the edition of 20 prints because it is the only one printed using sepia, rather than black, ink. Celebrate 40,000 Years of American Art will be included in the Museum’s summer exhibition of recent acquisitions June 1 – August 26, 2023. It will be the first time for this print to be exhibited.
The collagraph features a large standing rabbit that appears to be walking upright towards the foreground. The sense of movement is suggested through the depiction of the rabbit multiple times in increasingly larger scale. Smith’s inspiration for the rabbit image was a book about the Peterborough petroglyphs of Ontario. The rabbit petroglyph was a very early form of art found in North America, and it resonated with Quick-to-See Smith about a history of Native American art that predates the history of art in Western culture.
Fredo Rivera, Grinnell College assistant professor of Art History, describes the importance of the work to their teaching, saying, “Our American Art class had the privilege of working closely with the college art collection last fall, hosting weekly class sessions at the museum and its Print & Drawing Study Room with Registrar and Collections Manager Jocelyn Kreuger. During our very first session we were discussing what constitutes American art during a visit to the museum's vault. It was our great fortune that the Jaune Quick-to-See print had just arrived. Not yet framed and seemingly untouched, the large-scale print challenged us to think of a longue-durée history of American art. The print provided a uniquely indigenous perspective on American art history that served as a perfect catalyst for our initial conversations regarding historiography and the visual arts of the Americas.”
Quick-to-See Smith was unfamiliar with the collagraph process when she arrived at Washington University. Peter Marcus, one of the instructors and a longtime practitioner of collagraphy, explained the process to the artist. A collagraph is a type of printmaking, traditionally made from a collaged printmaking plate. Shapes and textures are layered on a matrix or plate (usually metal, Masonite, or plexiglass) and sealed with gloss varnish. After the sealed assemblage dries, the surface is inked, and wiped with starched cheese cloth. When the inked and wiped collagraph plate is pressed against paper—usually on a press—the resulting collagraph print is richly textured.
In 2000 the Whitney Museum of American Art purchased a print of Celebrate 40,000 Years of American Art from the edition produced at Washington University. The print is featured in a major exhibition of Quick-to-See Smith’s work which will on display at the Whitney through August 13, 2023. The exhibition Jaune Quick-to-See Smith: Memory Map brings together nearly five decades of Smith’s drawings, prints, paintings, and sculptures in the largest and most comprehensive showing of her career to date. This is the first exhibition of a Native American artist organized by the Whitney.
