Tulane University

A little known American Indian archive will be unveiled at the New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA) from July 24 until October 24, 2010. “Ancestors and Descendants: Ancient Southwestern America at the Dawn of the Twentieth Century” will be the first comprehensive exhibition of nineteenth century photography, Southwestern artifacts and archival research from the George Hubbard Pepper Native American Archive at Tulane University.

In collaboration with Tulane’s Middle American Research Institute (MARI) and Latin American Library (LAL), the exhibition offers a special glimpse of the Tulane archive featuring 150 objects from Pepper’s personal Native American art collection as well as 140 photographic images. Pepper, a museum ethnologist and scholar, used textiles, pottery, baskets, and other Pueblo and Navajo paraphernalia as visual complements to his lectures. Many of the images and the objects in Ancestors and Descendants have never been published or seen by the general public since 1924.

“There has never been an opportunity to bring together this many items from the Pepper archive,” said Paul Tarver, curator of Ancestors and Descendants. “Even in his lifetime, Pepper could only display a handful of objects with a few dozen images he projected through a magic lantern. This is the first time the breadth of the archive has been researched and displayed.”

The objects and images selected for the NOMA exhibition document the relationship between American Indians and the scientists, photographers and tourists who traveled to New Mexico and Arizona at the turn of the twentieth century. MARI and LAL archives include Pepper’s original excavation journals, personal diaries, sketch books, lectures and photographs that illustrate everyday interactions between Pepper and his subjects. The exhibition will utilize excerpts from these materials and bring the time period to life through Pepper’s words.

The exhibition at NOMA will display the wide variety of art forms Pepper collected from the Southwest as well as drawings and original handwritten journals from his Bonito excavation. Ancestors and Descendants presents a rare opportunity to see a collection that was put together over one hundred years ago by a museum ethnologist and early collector and scholar of Native American art.

Ancestors and Descendants: Ancient Southwestern America at the Dawn of the Twentieth Century is curated by Paul J. Tarver, NOMA’s Curator of Pre-Columbian and Native American Art, and co-curated by Cristin J. Nunez. The exhibition is generously funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, and the Cudd Foundation.

EXHIBITION EVENTS

JULY 25: Family Art-Making Activity

JULY 28: 6 pm – Exhibition Walk-through *
7-8 pm – Live music by Flow Tribe *

AUGUST 18: 6 pm – Exhibition Walk-through *

AUGUST 27: Noon – Exhibition Walk-through

SEPTEMBER 8: 6 pm – Exhibition Walk-through *

SEPTEMBER 15: 6 pm – Lecture by Dr. Jonathan E. Reyman in the Stern Auditorium *

SEPTEMBER 19: 1-4 pm – Family Art-Making Activity

SEPTEMBER 24: Noon – Exhibition Walk-through

OCTOBER 13: 6 pm – Lecture by James Sneed in the Stern Auditorium *

* All Wednesday events are free and open to the public. Other listings are free with NOMA admission. For event details, visit: http://www.noma.org/special

NOMA ADMISSION
Wednesdays are FREE for all Museum visitors. Louisiana residents with valid photo identification: Adults, $8; Seniors (65 and up), $7; Children 3-17, $4; Children under 3, free. Out-of-state visitors: Adults, $10; Seniors (65 and up), $9; Children 3-17, $5; Children under 3, free. Free Wednesdays and discounted admission for Louisiana residents is made possible through the generosity of The Helis Foundation.

ABOUT NOMA AND THE BESTHOFF SCULPTURE GARDEN
The New Orleans Museum of Art, founded in 1910 by Isaac Delgado, houses more than 30,000 art objects encompassing 4,000 years of world art. Works from the permanent collection, along with continuously changing temporary exhibitions, are on view in the Museum’s 46 galleries Wednesdays from noon to 8 p.m. and Thursdays to Sundays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Admission to the adjacent Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Garden, featuring work by 61 artists, including several of the 20th century’s great master sculptors, is always free. The Sculpture Garden is open seven days a week from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. except for Wednesdays, when it’s open until dusk. The New Orleans Museum of Art and the Besthoff Sculpture Garden are fully accessible to handicapped visitors and wheelchairs are available from the front desk.

For more information, call (504) 658-4100 or visit www.noma.org.