Art of the American Indians: The Thaw Collection

In the Cleveland Museum of Art's first Native American exhibition since the 1970s, experience 135 works of art—each with a fascinating story—when the renowned Thaw Collection from the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown, New York visits Cleveland in the Spring of 2010. The exhibition, which focuses on the 1800s, showcases the extraordinary variety of Native artistic production, moving from the ancient ivories and ingenious modern masks of the Arctic to the dramatic sculptural arts of the Pacific Northwest, the millennia-long tradition of abstract art in the Southwest, the refined basketry of California and the Great Basin, the famous beaded and painted works of the Plains, and the luminous styles of the Eastern Woodlands, including the Great Lakes. A few objects from CMA's own collection are included. Revelations abound. Admission is free.