Native Moderns

“Native Moderns addresses an area of Native American art that deserves more attention than it has received. . . . [A] worthwhile addition to art history. . . .” — Edward J. Rielly, Journal of American Culture

“Native Moderns is a fascinating study of the changing nature and reception of modern American Indian art in relation to the history of modern art, American society and government policy. Herein Bill Anthes significantly expands the canon of modern art history while exploring the all important notion of identity and authenticity in terms of how particular artists, from both within the Indian community and without, have been inspired by native American heritages. This always lucid book will be of tremendous value to art historians and anthropologists. . . .” — Jonathan Zilberg, Leonardo Reviews

“Native Moderns is a solid introduction to the nature of ‘modern’ Native American art and the importance of Indian themes to mainstream modernist art. Anthes raises many thought-provoking questions and does an admirable job in offering answers to them.” — Francis Flavin, Western Historical Quarterly

“Native Moderns is another valuable installment to Duke University Press’s commendable . . . Objects/Histories series. Bill Anthes’s lucid and absorbing account traces the creative self-fashioning of a diverse group of Native American artists during the mid-twentieth century and compellingly argues that shifting notions of identity and modernity are fundamental to understanding not only Native American art in the postwar years, but larger dynamics of American art. . . . This book fills an important scholarly gap by selectively concentrating on artists who came of age after 1945 but before the growth of the Native art markets in the 1960s. . . . Native Moderns will appeal to specialists and upper-level undergraduates with an interest in contemporary Native American art.” — Norman Vorano, New Mexico Historical Review

“Anthes does a notable job of rewriting and documenting the history of the modernist times under discussion, and his research is commendable. . . .” — Alfred Young Man, American Indian Culture and Research Journal

“Anthes offers a conceptual discourse rather than an encyclopedic history of American Indian painting. He presents an overview of the era, including the range of changes experienced by native painters within the context of political, economic, and social history. He examines thought-provoking issues that are significant to understanding native modernist painting: the importance of place, cultural appropriation, reconstruction, and individual innovation.” — Patricia Coronel, Journal of American Ethnic History

“Bill Anthes’ book, Native Moderns, offers a welcome contribution to the field of scholarship on twentieth-century Native American art. Not just a bravura display of a few little known artists, Anthes instead pulls together the biographies and careers of six Indian and two non-Indian painters to tackle one of the main impediments to the scholarly recognition of a modern Native American art: the perceived disparity between Indians and modernity.” — Laura E. Smith, Museum Anthropology Review

“In focussing on just twenty years of American Indian painting Bill Anthes has chosen what seems at first to be quite a restricted field, but his nuanced and careful account succeeds in opening up almost all of the key issues which still dominate Native American art and its reception today. In its balanced account of a range of several lesser-known painters it adds real depth and texture to the standard narratives, and the well-documented account is supported by excellent colour reproductions of thirty-four relevant paintings. . . . A rich and rewarding study.” — David Murray, Journal of American Studies

“Read this book partly because it is an insightful study of modern American Indian painting but also because it illuminates our understanding of all twentieth-century art. With the author’s exhaustive and thorough research you will grow to understand how individual Native American artists have been affected by their participation in the art world.” — Janette K. Hopper, Studies in American Indian Literatures

“Read this book partly because it is an insightful study of modern American Indian painting but also because it illuminates our understanding of all twentieth-century art. With the author's exhaustive and thorough research you will grow to understand how individual Native American artists have been affected by their participation in the art world.” — Janette K. Hopper, American Indian Quarterly

“This volume is a welcome addition to the theoretical discussion concerning Native American painting from 1940 to 1960 in the wider consideration of American Modernism. Recommended.” — M. Watson, Choice