Jeri Redcorn’s “Intertwining Scrolls” (shown in this National Museum of the American Indian photo) is among several pieces of Native American pottery chosen for the White House by President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama. So is Maria Poveka Martinez’s San Ildefonso Pueblo jar, from the late 1950s. (See Nos. 4 and 8, also No. 11, in this slideshow.)

Those and other works in the collection, writes the Washington Post’s Blake Gopnik, here, “seem to redress past imbalances in the nation’s sense of its own art. There are works by African Americans (seven paintings from three artists, out of a total of 47) and by Native Americans (four artists contributed three modern ceramics and one abstract painting). There are also 12 paintings depicting Native Americans, by the 19th-century ethnographic artist George Catlin.”

Later in the story, he writes, “As for the Catlin Indians, should we think of them as a positive nod to the original peoples of this continent, or are they all about a white colonialist gawking at exotic conquered peoples? Paul Chaat Smith, who curates contemporary art at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, says that even he and other native peoples aren’t sure of the answer. ‘They’re not us, they’re not for us,’ he says, but they’re also’”part of how we think about ourselves.’”

We’re not sure of the answer, either, but we’re glad the Obamas have chosen works that focus some attention on the subject.

Gwen Florio

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