Description

The Project:  Although this is a straightforward collection processing project, it is distinguished by the targeted impact it will have on the field of modern and contemporary Native American art and on the key programs of the University of South Dakota’s University Art Galleries (UAG). The project will enable the accessibility of two key components of the UAG’s permanent collection: The Oscar Howe Collection; and the Robert Penn Northern Plains Contemporary Indian Art Collection. The Howe Collection includes over 400 works by Howe as well as some archival material.  The Penn Collection (Robert Penn was a student of Howe’s) includes over seventy paintings and prints.  About eighty additional works are by artists associated with the Oscar Howe Summer Institute. The project will complement the major Oscar Howe exhibition (mentioned in the grant) that is a candidate for funding in the HLF’s 2018 loan exhibition competition. It anticipates both the requests for loans from the UAG collection and the expanded interest in Howe’s work that the exhibition is likely to generate.  As important, the project will allow the collection to play a fuller role in the work of the museum’s endowed Oscar Howe Curatorial Fellows and its Northern Plains Indian Artist’s residencies.  It should be noted that Native American art constitutes about 20% of the entire collection of the UAG.
Rationale for Funding: This project is a well-conceived effort by the museum’s new director. It addresses the museum’s major holdings with an eye to achieving their full accessibility for staff, researchers, curators in the field, UAG curatorial fellows, and resident artists. The project is absolutely timely, and will allow the collections to play the role they deserve in connection with the forthcoming major Oscar Howe exhibition and the anticipated, elevated interest in Howe’s work that is sure to follow it.  The project is designed for do-ability; the museum would not have been able to accommodate a full-time staff member, hence the two-year plan. Given the anticipated HLF support for the Howe exhibition (to be approved and announced in November 2018), this project represents an excellent opportunity to make effectively linked grants in the special and responsive grant categories, and thus to amplify the impact of the individual grants.  It allows the American Art Program to continues a sustained effort to work in the Native American field, and it represents the Program’s first grant to be made in South Dakota.