Events

By Dorene Red Cloud (Oglala Lakota), curator of Native American art

Since the Eiteljorg Fellowship program’s inception 27 years ago, the museum has selected 70 esteemed contemporary Native artists as Eiteljorg Fellows, and honored them with  exhibitions of their work biennially. Opening in August, Then and Now: Art from the Eiteljorg Contemporary Art Fellowship celebrates more than a quarter century of the Eiteljorg Contemporary Art Fellowship (ECAF). This long-term exhibition features artworks from a selection of past Eiteljorg Fellows, many of whom are known both nationally and internationally, some with recent retrospective exhibitions that have traveled the country.

Through the ECAF, since 1999 the Eiteljorg has acquired numerous works of groundbreaking contemporary art by our Fellows. However, some Fellowship artworks acquired in earlier rounds have not been on view for many years, and one or two of the acquisitions have never been on view at the Eiteljorg.

Take for example the mixed media painting Sunlight C.S. 1854 (1989) by Jaune Quick-to-See Smith (Confederated Salish and Kootenai Nation, 1940–2025). This electric artwork includes a functioning bare bulb light fixture in the upper left corner, representing the sun — and invites viewers to contemplate our modern relationship with the natural world. It was gifted to the museum by David Henry Jacobs, Jr., after the 1999 Fellowship exhibition. Recently, Sunlight was on view at The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City; our partners there conserved it and included it in their 2023 retrospective exhibition Jaune Quick-to-See Smith: Memory Map. But this stunning painting has not been previously exhibited at the Eiteljorg — until now.

Then and Now will also include artworks first featured in 2003, 2005, or 2007 by Kay WalkingStick (Cherokee Nation, born 1935), Robert Houle (Saulteaux, born 1947), and Jim Denomie (Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe, 1955–2022). WalkingStick’s captivating two-panel diptych paintings combine dramatic mountain scenes from the Italian Alps with figure studies and sparkling gilded skies.

Loyal ECAF fans can revisit notable works by Joe Feddersen (Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, 2001 Fellow), Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun (Coast Salish / Okanagan, 2013 Invited Fellow), and Dyani White Hawk (Sičáŋğu Lakhóta, 2019 Fellow). The exhibition also features works by recent ECAF artists such as Steven J. Yazzie (Navajo / Laguna Pueblo, 2021 Fellow), Raven Halfmoon (Caddo Nation, 2023 Fellow), and John Feodorov (Navajo Nation, 2025 Fellow). These artists use a diverse range of multimedia in unexpected and amazing ways. Get reacquainted with their works in the new exhibition and appreciate the significance of contemporary art that the ECAF has brought to the Eiteljorg.

About the Eiteljorg Fellowship

In 1999, the Eiteljorg Fellowship for Native American Fine Art, as it was called at the time, was a daring new program unlike any other. This is still true today — no other museum or gallery in the U.S. or Canada has adopted a contemporary Native art fellowship program exactly like this. In every biennial ECAF round, the Eiteljorg selects five contemporary American Indian, Alaska Native or First Nations artists from the U.S. and Canada, presents them an unrestricted cash prize, purchases art from each to add to the museum’s permanent collection, and creates a scholarly catalog and group exhibition. The unrestricted cash award to each artist has increased; originally $20,000, the award grew to $25,000, and since 2023 to $50,000. At first, fellowships were awarded to six artists each round; since 2009, five are awarded. We anticipate another exciting chapter of the ECAF in 2027.

In the meantime, the exhibition Then and Now will feature some showstopping artworks and demonstrate why the Eiteljorg Contemporary Art Fellowship has made a significant impact to the field of contemporary art over time.

 

THEN AND NOW:
ART FROM THE EITELJORG CONTEMPORARY ART FELLOWSHIP
AUG 1, 2026–FALL 2028

MADE POSSIBLE WITH SUPPORT FROM:

 

 

Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in the June 2026 issue of Storyteller magazine.