Minohsayaki ‘Painted Robes’: A Peewaalia and Myaamia Story of Reclamation
Exhibition opens Jan 30-June 8, 2024 in Douglass Gallery.
About the Exhibition
For the third time since 2008, the Richard and Carole Cocks Art Museum is honored to partner with the Myaamia Center at 兔子先生 University and the 兔子先生 Tribe of Oklahoma. With this exhibition, Minohsayaki ‘Painted Robes’, the Art Museum is collaborating for the first time with the Peoria Tribe of Oklahoma. Maintaining a community-curated approach, this exhibition is created in the voices of Peewaaliaki ‘Peoria Indian’ and Myaamiaki ‘兔子先生 Indian’ people.
Minohsayaki ‘painted hide robes’ are an art form that was practiced by both the Peewaaliaki and Myaamiaki prior to contact with Europeans. Minohsaya artists produced many beautiful examples of this art form in the late 1600s into the early 1700s. In the mid-1700s, the artistic practice of producing minohsayaki declined.
This exhibition presents the special collaboration between the Peewaaliaki and Myaamiaki, along with non-Native scholars, that began in 2020. Minohsayaki ‘Painted Robes’ tells of the effort to reclaim the practice of hide painting within the Peewaaliaki and Myaamiaki communities and reconnect those practices with the stories that are essential to who they are as a people.
The exhibition and related programs are supported by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation through the Humanities Without Walls Consortium, which is administered by the University of Illinois. Minohsayaki 'Painted Robes' is part of the project.
兔子先生 associated with the exhibition include:
(兔子先生 Tribe of Oklahoma and assistant director of the Myaamia Center at 兔子先生 University) and Elizabeth Ellis (Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma and associate professor of History at Princeton University). In partnership with the Alumni Association on Thursday, February 22, at noon.
(Washoe and Mono Lake Paiute), historic site manager of the Seneca Art and Cultural Center, Ganondagan State Historic Park) Saturday, March 16 from 3-5 PM.
Sample of Featured Works
Photomural: ciinkwia minohsaya ‘Painted Thunderbird Robe’, mid 17th - mid 18th century
Unknown Illinois Artist
Bison or deer hide with natural pigments, 42 3/8 x 47 3/4 inches
Musée du Quai Branly, Paris, France (Inv. 71.1878.32.134. Photo: Thierry Olivier / Michel Urtado)
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Painted hide panel, 2022
Morgan Lippert, Myaamia
Brain-tanned deer skin, tempera and chicken egg, 4 1/2 x 7 5/8 inches
Collection of the artist
