Artist Spotlight: The Art and Impact of Jaune Quick-to-See Smith

Online Exhibition

Learn more about Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, who helped define the genre of contemporary Indigenous art. This online exhibition explores how her work addresses the myths of her ancestors in the context of current issues facing Native Americans.

Overview

Jaune Quick-to-See Smith confronted subjects such as the destruction of the environment, governmental oppression of Indigenous cultures, and the pervasive myths of Euro-American cultural hegemony through a combination of representational and abstract images. Her politically charged and humorous imagery combines texts and popular culture alongside desert landscapes, horses, maps, and petroglyphs.

Jaune Quick-to-See-Smith (b. 1940, St. Ignatius, Montana; d. 2025, Corrales, New Mexico)

Raised on the Flathead Reservation, Smith was an enrolled member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Nation in Montana. Deeply connected to her heritage, she created work that is rooted in storytelling. Smith worked with paint, collage, and appropriated imagery. Her inspiration stemmed from the formal innovations of such artists as Pablo Picasso, Paul Klee, and Robert Rauschenberg, as well as traditional Indigenous art.

A black and white photograph of a light-skinned Native American woman with short dark hair and dark lipstick. She is dressed in all black and is wearing a black wide-brimmed hat and long silver earrings made of rectangular metal shapes.
Jaune Quick-to-See Smith; Photo courtesy of the artist

Grey Canyon Artists: Contemporaries of Jaune Quick-to-See Smith

In 1977 Smith founded a group of Indigenous artists in Albuquerque, New Mexico, known as the Grey Canyon Artists. The name was a metaphor for the city surroundings and signified the transition and pushback of Indigenous artists from the more stereotypical “traditional” mediums. The group consisted of Smith, Larry Emerson, Conrad House, Paul Little, Felice Lucero, Ed Singer, and Emmi Whitehorse. The Grey Canyon Group had exhibitions across the US for four years.

Goldenrod yellow paint smudged across white paper in layers, creating different levels of opacity. Vertical red and black lines, and a few red and black shape outlines, mostly of tall ovals, are painted sporadically on the paper.
Emmi Whitehorse, Jackstraw, 2000; Lithograph on paper, 22 1/4 x 30 1/8 in.; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Gift of the Harry and Lea Gudelsky Foundation, Inc.

Collection Artworks

Indian, Indio, Indigenous

To Smith, paintings like Indian, Indio, Indigenous are narrative landscapes, evoking the visible topography of the landscape as well as the life and history encompassed within it. She collaged an array of materials onto the canvas, including striped and polka-dotted fabrics; the masthead of her reservation’s newspaper, Char-Koosta; parts of a US map; and a comic strip. She juxtaposed these collaged elements with blocks of stained or roughly brushed and dripped paint.

A horizontal canvas combines collaged paper, such as a scrap of a U.S. map, comic strip, and pictographs; cloth swatches; scrawled and dripped paint; and phrases like “It takes hard work to keep racism alive” and “Oh! Zone.” The work’s title appears in red paint right of center.
Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Indian, Indio, Indigenous, 1992; Oil and collage on canvas, 60 x 100 in.; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Museum purchase: Members' Acquisition Fund; Courtesy of the artist and Garth Greenan Gallery, New York

Audio

Hear Curator Orin Zahra Discuss Indian, Indio, Indigenous

Read Transcript

Smith refers to paintings like Indian, Indio, Indigenous as narrative landscapes. We see pictographs of the natural world like bear, coyote, and deer, juxtaposed with mocking inscriptions such as, it takes hard work to keep racism alive, and money is green, it takes precedence over nature. Smith sharply critiques the destruction of the environment and Native American culture as a result of Euro-American influence and corporate greed.

A Lasting Impact

Championing Indigenous Women Artists

Smith referred to herself a cultural arts worker. Not only was she an artist, but she was also an educator, curator, and activist. While training in the arts, she recalled being told by a professor that women could not be artists and later discovered that only Native American men exhibited in galleries.

Smith became dedicated to championing Native American women artists and consistently organized and curated exhibitions since the 1970s. Through her artwork, activism, lectures, and writings, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith strove for greater understanding of Native American culture and its inclusion in the American mainstream.

Two female visitors in grey sweaters look at an abstract painting. The painting is primarily beige and grey blocks of color, and the words "Indian" "Indio" and "Indigenous" are written in red paint.
Visitors in the permanent collection gallery at the National Museum of Women in the Arts' January 2024 NMWA Nights. Photo by Derek Baker for NMWA.

Her Legacy

Throughout her life, Smith had 80 solo exhibitions, organized and curated 30 Indigenous exhibitions, and spoken at 200 universities, museums, and conferences. Her influence and lasting impact continues to be felt.

“I think I’m a miracle and I say that whenever I talk to an audience. I tell them: ‘I’m a miracle, and any Native person here is a miracle.'”

–Jaune Quick-to-See Smith to The New York Times

Tour of Jaune Quick-to-See Smith's Indian, Indio, Indigenous (1992); Photo credit: Kevin Allen
Tour of Jaune Quick-to-See Smith's Indian, Indio, Indigenous (1992); Photo credit: Kevin Allen