The University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art presents Drawn Over: Reclaiming Our Histories. 

Featuring the museum’s world-renowned collection of Native American ledger drawings and guest curated by Dr. Jacki Thompson Rand (citizen, Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma); Associate Vice Chancellor for Native Affairs, Associate Professor, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. The show is generously supported by the Terra Foundation for American Art with additional support from John S. and Patricia C. Koza.

The exhibition showcases a diverse and inclusive collection and invests in communities that have been historically underrepresented in museum spaces.  

The Stanley’s collection of ledger drawings features 11 works, a number of which are central to Dr. Rand’s exhibition. As she notes, “[the show] focuses on the role that the arts have played in Indigenous peoples’ recovery, reproduction, and creation of knowledges that sustain our communities, preserve our history, and decolonize the environments in which we live, work, and create.” 

Native American ledger art is a Plains Indian style established in the last third of the 19th century. Ledger drawings were an expressive form through which the artists told stories, memorialized achievements, and located events in time. Employing the tools and materials of a foreign culture, including crayons, pencils, and paper, these artists expanded on the Plains Indian artistic tradition of renderings of battles, heroic deeds, ceremonies, and everyday customs on buffalo hide robes and tipi covers. 

The curatorial cohort of advisors that support Dr. Rand include Erica Prussing (Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Iowa); Jennifer New (Community Engagement Specialist); Mary Young Bear (Meskwaki, Traditional Artist); Patricia Trujillo (Ojibwe/Meskwaki, Museum Professional, Retired); Phillip Round (Professor Emeritus, English/Native American and Indigenous Studies, University of Iowa). 

On view Aug. 23, 2023, through January 2024. 

An opening reception will be held on Aug. 24 at the museum from 6:30 to 8 p.m. 

IMAGE

Southern Cheyenne
Courting: Man, Woman, Horse, from page 51 of the Old White Woman Ledger 
1880-1890 
Charcoal, natural, commercial colors on ledger paper
11 3/4 x 7 1/4 in. (29.85 x 18.42 cm) 
Gift of Gerald and Hope Solomons