Jaune Quick-to-See Smith: Her Existence Was a Miracle
Artist, activist, curator, and educator Jaune Quick-to-See Smith (Confederated Salish and Kootenai Nation) has died at the age of 85. Born in 1940 at Saint Ignatius Mission on the Flathead Reservation in Montana, as a child she drew animals in the dirt. She grew to pursue her art and education relentlessly, becoming one of the most innovative and significant artists of her generation over an illustrious six-decade career. She leaves behind a long legacy of positioning Native American art and ideas at the center of critical dialogues around land, social justice, history, and culture and nurturing the next generation of Indigenous artists.
SAM had the honor of hosting Smith’s largest-ever retrospective, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith: Memory Map (February 29–May 12, 2024). The Seattle Art Museum was the only West Coast stop and the last venue of the tour for this monumental exhibition organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York and curated by Laura Phipps. Theresa Papanikolas, SAM’s Ann M. Barwick Curator of American Art, shared her experience of working with Smith to bring together the SAM iteration of Memory Map.
“It was such an honor and a pleasure to get to know Jaune when I curated SAM’s stop on her major career retrospective. As a specialist in American art, I always appreciated how she recast American art and history from her perspective as an Indigenous artist, but having the chance to know her and become immersed in her work at every level was truly transformative. Spending time with her paintings and sculptures and hearing her talk about their many layers opened my eyes to new ways of thinking about everything from climate change to landscape painting to transnational geopolitics. Then seeing our visitors do the same was truly rewarding. I will never forget how she, along with artist Neal Ambrose-Smith and Whitney Museum of Art curator Laura Phipps, brought the house down when they presented their work on the exhibition to our members. It is a memory I will always cherish, second only to having the great fortune to be a part of Jaune’s universe, at least for a little while.”
When Smith was in Seattle to share Memory Map, she and her son and fellow artist Neal Ambrose-Smith shared reflections with us for a video series you can enjoy on SAM’s YouTube channel.
We’re giving Barbara Brotherton, SAM’s former Curator of Native American Art (2001–2022), the final words on Smith’s work and legacy.
“As Jaune’s family and friends send her into the arms of her ancestors, it is good to remember her courage and kindness. Jaune broke every glass ceiling there was, not by stepping on others but by bringing them along. Knowing there is strength in numbers, she brought Native artists together by organizing exhibitions and events when there were few venues for Native fine art. She persuasively convinced curators and gallerists to invest in promoting Native artists. She was a visionary, presaging a time when the art establishment would stand up and take notice of the important work being enacted all over Native America. Like the legendary Chief Seattle that she paid homage to in work over decades, Jaune was a diplomat, a community convenor, and a strident voice for honoring ancestral land and promoting social justice and sustainability. Her storied landscapes in paint, print, collage, and sculpture expose the stain of racism, genocide, and degradation of the land using the conventions of canoe, map, and trickster figures from Native oral histories. Using her enormous talent and vision, she showed us that Native artists have important things to say. We should be listening.”
– Rachel Eggers, SAM’s Associate Director of Public Relations
Photos: Alborz Kamalizad, Chloe Collyer.