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    Painting Native America
    Indigenous Artists in the Twentieth Century

    Nicolas G. Rosenthal (Author)

    9781496244260

    Hardback, published 1 January 2026

    296 pages, 70 color illustrations, index
    22.9 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.666 kg

    “Rethinking Indigenous art as modern art is more than trending; it is a major development in the Indigenous artistic and intellectual community. It’s not just that Nicolas Rosenthal spares his readers a lot of theoretical jargon, but more importantly he lets the artists’ voices shine through as primary to understanding their times and experiences as Indigenous artists.”—David MartÍnez, author of Life of the Indigenous Mind: Vine Deloria Jr. and the Birth of the Red Power Movement
    “Nicolas Rosenthal focuses on the artists’ lives and personal experiences and how each individual artist used art to assert cultural and visual sovereignty. He highlights the thin line that artists had to walk between making art and making a living, between meeting market and museum expectations and personal expression.”—Marinella Lentis, author of Colonized through Art: American Indian Schools and Art Education, 1889–1915

    Generations of Indigenous artists have sought to make a place for Native art in North American culture and society as well as the broader art world. Written at the intersection of history and art history, Painting Native America tells the social history of Indigenous artists and their experiences as they negotiate such questions as how to use art for social and political goals, what constitutes “Indian art,” and how to make a living as an artist, showing how each generation’s approach to these issues in the twentieth century was shaped by previous struggles. Nicolas G. Rosenthal demonstrates that by exhibiting their paintings in museums, galleries, and public spaces, Native American artists rewrote dominant narratives of North American history, foregrounding Native perspectives while indigenizing the art world.

    Featuring seventy color illustrations, Painting Native America examines generations of American Indian and First Nations painters, including Oscar Howe, Pablita Velarde, Allan Houser, Woody Crumbo, T. C. Cannon, Fritz Scholder, Frank LaPena, Jean LaMarr and others. Rosenthal situates Indigenous artists in twentieth-century modernity, attesting to the dynamism of survivance and the cultural and visual sovereignty practiced by these artists. Rosenthal also provides one of the first social and urban histories of Indigenous artists and art scenes in the North American West and examines the origins of the regional art scenes these artists created in Oklahoma, New Mexico, California, and British Columbia.

    List of Illustrations
    Introduction: Indigenous Artists in the Twentieth Century
    1. Indigenizing the Art World: The First Generation of Modern American Indian Painters
    2. Painting Native America at School and in Public: Indigenous Artists, Studio Art Programs, and the New Deal
    3. Prying the Art World Open: Indigenous Artists in Postwar America
    4. Blowing the Art World Apart: Indigenous Artists, 1960s–
    1980s
    5. Rewriting Narratives: Regional Native Art Scenes
    Epilogue: Indigenous Artists in the Twenty-First Century
    Acknowledgments
    Notes
    Bibliography
    Index
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