Another Opening at the Heard

 

Yesterday morning I attended a special member's opening for a new exhibit at the Heard Museum.  This exhibit is called Kay WalkingStick/Hudson River School.  This show was organized by the New York Historical Society after they purchased the above painting of Niagara Falls.  It's the first painting by a Native American artist in it's collection.  Kay WalkingStick (b. 1935) was inspired to create a painting of Niagara Falls after viewing an exhibit at The Historical Society in 2022 of paintings by members of the the Hudson River School, a group of 19th artists, mostly men who helped to forge an American landscape tradition.  She said she considers it to be one of her best.

Kay's landscape paintings include Native American symbols and patterns that in a way reclaims the land as native.  She says that after all, "every American lives in Indian territory". The painting above is called St. Mary's Mountain.

This painting is called "Our Land".  Kay WalkingStick is from the Cherokee indigenous people and she has a strong bond with the Heard Museum.  She worked closely with the Heard Museum curators to meld this show as it appeared in New York with paintings from the Heard's own collections.  I'll show some of those in the future.  They included some that haven't been on view in many years and all were selected by Kay WalkingStick.

Another great exhibit at the Heard!