Description
The Project :
The New Jersey State Museum (NJSM) seeks funding for the conservation, rehousing, and digitization of two rare, multi-page compilations of Native American ledger drawings: The Pictorial History of Short Bull from 1844 to 1924 , and Booklet of Six Drawings by Chief Bloody Knife . The museum’s little-known ethnographic collection was initiated in 1932, with the purchase of works out of an exhibition of North American Indian art. The collection grew significantly in the 1940s, when the anthropologist Frank Speck made field collections for the museum among the Delaware Indians of Oklahoma and Canada; it has been further expanded through occasional gifts.
A 2015 IMLS grant led to a fresh and full inventory of the ethnographic collection, which in turn generated new attention to the two drawing groups mentioned above. With the aim of making these important objects available to a broad public, including scholars and Native American communities, the NJSM proposes an ambitious conservation treatment that will render the works viable for exhibition and digitization. Paper, pigments, and bindings will be repaired or stabilized, and new housings will be prepared to ensure the secure, long-term storage of the objects. The project will involve communication and consultation with leading authorities in the field and with Native American communities, in order to develop a more accurate understanding of the works and what they convey about their authors, subjects, and the circumstances that led to their production. The stabilized objects will be photographed and the digital files will be uploaded to the museum’s website, along with newly revised and researched information.
Rationale for Funding :
The NJSM is one of many public institutions that hold significant but under-studied and under-seen collections of Native American art and objects. Jumping off from the work associated with the IMLS-funded inventory of their ethnographic collection, the NJSM is identifying next steps, prioritizing the conservation of particularly significant works including The Pictorial History of Short Bull from 1844 to 1924 , and Booklet of Six Drawings by Chief Bloody Knife . The time is ripe for this project, given that in recent years Native American ledger drawings have become the focus of concerted and productive study. New attention has been directed to the identity of the artists, and to the political circumstances and ramifications of their production. The fact that both of these object groups are firmly attributed makes it all the more likely that sharing them will advance this area of study.
The NJSM has secured thorough examinations and treatment proposals from leading conservators in the paper field. There is little doubt of a successful outcome. The proposed digitization of the objects will result their vastly enhanced accessibility. The project will have extended impact in that the works are expected to be included in a forthcoming exhibition of the museum’s Native American collection.
As the American Art Program begins to work in a more concerted and targeted way in the Native American field, projects such as this one, though modest, can function as significant first steps in putting currently-obscure collections on the map, and thus seeding wider interest from Native American communities, field specialists, and the general public.
