Announcing the George Morrison Center for Indigenous Arts at the University of Minnesota

The University of Minnesota Department of American Indian Studies and Department of Art are pleased to announce the creation of the George Morrison Center for Indigenous Arts, an interdepartmental study center to support the creation, presentation, and interpretation of Indigenous art in all its forms. 

Named in honor of Grand Portage Ojibwe artist and UMN faculty member George Morrison (1919–2000), the center’s programming will begin in January 2024 with the group exhibition Dreaming Our Futures: Ojibwe and Očhéthi Šakówiŋ Artists and Knowledge Keepers, featuring the work of 29 mid-century and contemporary Indigenous American artists at the Katherine E. Nash Gallery. The exhibition is co-curated by Northrop Professor of American Studies Brenda J. Child (Red Lake Ojibwe) and Katherine E. Nash Gallery Director Howard Oransky.

The success of the 2016 Nash Gallery exhibition Singing Our History: People and Places of the Red Lake Nation planted the idea in the mind of Professor Child, who curated that exhibit and has overseen the development of the George Morrison Center from the beginning. “So many people came out to see that exhibit, and it clearly engaged the Indian community throughout Minnesota,” she said. “The public’s enthusiasm for it made me think, why not do that more often at the University of Minnesota?”

With initial funding from the College of Liberal Arts, the George Morrison Center for Indigenous Arts will act as an incubator for scholarship, advocacy, and engagement, working across disciplines and departments to develop a wide range of programming. “The George Morrison Center for Indigenous Arts is more of a research center and a concept than it is a space,” said Professor Child. “The visual arts exhibit is just the beginning; we’re talking about a big new project about Indigenous art and climate change that will involve community collaboration around film, photography, and exhibits beginning as early as 2025. The center will take a broad definition of the arts and be informed by Indigenous knowledge and perspectives.” 

“We often say that one very big challenge for us as Indian people is that we are often viewed as historic. We do have a rich history, but this first group exhibit would not be possible if not for the mid-century artists who found new ways of expressing themselves, who struggled to show Indigenous people as part of the making of the modern world.”

About George Morrison

To George Morrison, the horizon of Lake Superior was "like the edge of the world." After an art career at the center of the Abstract Expressionist movement in New York City and a faculty appointment at the Rhode Island School of Design, he came home to Gichigamiing. Morrison was hired at the University of Minnesota in 1970 with a one-year dual appointment in American Indian Studies and Studio Art. He then obtained a permanent, full-time appointment as Associate Professor of Studio Art (later promoted to full professor) and continued his career in the Department of Art until 1983. Morrison witnessed the early founding of both the Department of American Indian Studies and the American Indian Movement.

Focused on making monumental collages, his 94-foot-wide Turning the Feather Around (1974) was made for the exterior of the new American Indian Center on Franklin Avenue. Red Totem I (1977) went to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, and the wood collage of the Mississippi landscape The River (1983) was commissioned by the University's Law School. At Grand Portage and until the end of his life, Morrison produced hundreds of paintings, including many with his personal symbol of the horizon line of Gichigamiing in every season.

“We need to acknowledge that George Morrison is a major figure in the history of American art, not just Indigenous Peoples’ art or as one of our local folks who had done well,” said Professor Child, “and we need to celebrate that at the University of Minnesota.”

Dreaming Our Futures, January 16 – March 16, 2024

Dreaming Our Futures: Ojibwe and Očhéthi Šakówiŋ Artists and Knowledge Keepers at the Katherine E. Nash Gallery will feature 29 mid-century and contemporary artists, including three major figures in American Art from the Minnesota region. In 1968, Patrick DesJarlait, Oscar Howe, and George Morrison were part of an exhibition of contemporary Indian painting in Washington, DC. More than a half-century later, the inaugural exhibit of the George Morrison Center for Indigenous Arts will reflect on the history and future of American Indian painting. 

The exhibition artists include Frank Big Bear, David Bradley, Awanigiizhik Bruce, Andrea Carlson, Avis Charley, Fern Cloud, Michelle Defoe, Jim Denomie, Patrick DesJarlait, Sam English, Carl Gawboy, Joe Geshick, Sylvia Houle, Oscar Howe, Waŋblí Mayášleča (Francis J. Yellow, Jr.), George Morrison, Steven Premo, Rabbett Before Horses Strickland, Cole Redhorse Taylor, Roy Thomas, Jonathan Thunder, Thomasina TopBear, Moira Villiard, Kathleen Wall, Star WallowingBull, Dyani White Hawk, Bobby Dues Wilson, Leah H. Yellowbird, and Holly Young.

Katherine E. Nash Gallery
Regis Center for Art
405 21st Avenue So., Minneapolis, MN, 55455
University of Minnesota Department of Art

Gallery hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 11:00 AM – 5:00 PM

Friday, February 2, 2024

Dreaming Our Futures: “Art and American Indian Citizenship, 1924 – 2024” Panel Discussions

1:00 - 2:30 PM & 2:45 - 4:15 PM
The George Morrison Center for Indigenous Arts presents the first Horizon Seminar
"Art and American Indian Citizenship, 1924 – 2024"
with Brenda J. Child and Christopher Pexa
InFlux Space, E110, Regis Center for Art

The first Panel will feature Kate Beane, Heid Erdrich, Patricia Marroquin Norby, and Matthew Martinez, moderated by Brenda J. Child.

The second Panel will feature Mona Susan Power, Cole Redhorse Taylor, Darlene St. Clair, and Angela Two Stars, moderated by Christopher Pexa.

Saturday, February 3, 2024

Dreaming Our Futures: Opening Reception & Public Program

4:00 PM, Panel Discussion, InFlux Space, E110
6:00 PM, Reception, Regis Center for Art East Lobby
This event marks the opening of the George Morrison Center for Indigenous Arts.

Panelists: 

• Kate Beane (BA '07 American Indian Studies and PhD '14, American Studies; Flandreau Santee Sioux Dakota and Muscogee Creek), Executive Director, Minnesota Museum of American Art
• Louise Erdrich (Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa), author
• Diane Wilson (Dakota), author
• Christopher Pexa (Bdewákaŋtuŋwaŋ Dakota, Spirit Lake Nation), Associate Professor of English, Harvard University
• Hosted by Brenda J. Child, (Red Lake Ojibwe), Northrop Professor of American Studies, University of Minnesota

Thursday, February 15, 2024

Visiting Curator Presentation by Patricia Marroquin Norby

Painting Medicine: George Morrison’s Big Water Magic

12pm, InFlux Space, E110

Regis Center for Art

Patricia Marroquin Norby (PhD '13, American studies; Purépecha) is the inaugural Associate Curator of Native American Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. She will read her essay on the exhibition artist George Morrison from the exhibition catalog published by the Katherine E. Nash Gallery and distributed worldwide by the University of Minnesota Press.

Thursday, March 14, 2024

Fern Cloud Presentation: Traditional Dakota Hide Painting Techniques

12:00 PM, InFlux Space, E110

Regis Center for Art

For more information on the exhibition, including a full list of programming, please see the exhibition press release or contact horanksy@umn.edu.