Special Outfit for Trading Land with the U.S. Government for Whiskey with Gunpowder in it (from the series Paper Dolls for a Post Columbian World)
Artist
Jaune Quick-To-See Smith
(American, Citizen of Confederated Salish and Kootenai Nation, MT, born 1940)
Date1991
Mediumxerographic print with watercolor and pencil
DimensionsSupport: 17 1/8 × 11 in. (43.5 × 27.9 cm)
Image: 16 3/8 × 9 1/4 in. (41.6 × 23.5 cm)
Mat: 24 × 20 in. (61 × 50.8 cm)
Image: 16 3/8 × 9 1/4 in. (41.6 × 23.5 cm)
Mat: 24 × 20 in. (61 × 50.8 cm)
ClassificationsGraphic
Credit LineGift of Lucy R. Lippard, 1999
Object number1999.15.301.6
DescriptionThe image is of a paper clothes outfit meant for a paper doll. Four tabs are visible on the shoulders and legs of the costume. The outfit is in a Native American style and consists of a red shawl/blanket, green pants, and yellow moccasins. The text above the outfit reads: Special Outfit for Trading Land with the U.S. Government for and the text below says: Whiskey with Gunpowder in it.eMuseum Notes
Contemporary Native artists like Jaune Quick-To-See Smith look back on the history of negotiations between the U.S. government and indigenous people with a critical eye. In Smith’s work, the same kinds of blankets that once represented an ethnic group comes to stand as symbols of Native people’s troubled history with the U.S. government.
Jaune Quick-To-See Smith’s complete set of Paper Dolls for a Post
Columbian World with Ensembles Contributed by US
Government includes a
doll for each member of the
Plenty Horses family:
Ken, Barbie and their
son Bruce. This set
of dolls was the artist’s
ironic response to
the 500th anniversary of
the arrival of
Christopher Columbus in the
Americas. The use of
xerographic copies,
with hand color
applied, allowed the artist to make multiple versions of the paper doll family for widespread
distribution. The controversial 1992 celebration of the Columbus Quincentenary
prompted many exhibitions, symposia and articles reevaluating the myth of
discovery and the consequences of contact to the indigenous people and environment
of the Americas.
On View
Not on view
