Horton Performing Paint

This gallery features reproductions of 61 extant posters drawn from the collections of the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle in Paris, and the Musée du quai Branly in Paris.

The posters were printed in Santa Fe, New Mexico and painted by Native American students enrolled in the Studio School, a fine arts program at the Santa Fe Indian School, in 1935. Two hundred such posters were sent to Paris to advertise an exhibition of 100 student paintings organized by the French artist Paul Coze, Art Peau-rouge d’aujourd’hui (Art of the Redskin Today) at the Musée d’Ethnographie du Trocadéro from May 17 to June 23, 1935.

Five extant posters were signed by the artists; the creators of eight additional posters are identified with reasonable certainty based upon the style and subject matter of the paintings.

Theme by Anders Norén.

A10 Artist Unknown

A10 Artist Unknown, poster announcing Art Peau-Rouge d’Aujourd’hui, 1935. Tempera on paper, 20 in. x 13 in., Inst-187. Gift of the Toyota Motor Corporation, 1992, courtesy of the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, Santa Fe, NM. Based on the style and coloration of the dancers, this poster was almost certainly painted by Andrew Tsihnahjinnie (Yazzie Bahe, Diné, 1918–2000), an artist who later earned awards for his “mastery of vibrant, elastic linearity,” according to Bernstein and Rushing (33).

September 28, 2022
In Posters