MIA Affinity Groups are a great way for museum members to connect more closely with special areas of art interest. more »

Enthusiast ($100 per year/household/Affinity Group): Provides admission to three annual programs (e.g., lectures and gallery tours), e-newsletters, with insider information from the curatorial department(s) of your choice.

Collector ($1,000 per year/household/Affinity Group): Provides all the above, plus invitations to annual events with curators, dealers, and visiting scholars, travel opportunities, and other curator-developed programs focused around collecting in the curatorial department(s) of your choice.

join now »

The museum’s Native American art collection celebrates the artistic achievements of America’s first peoples. The collection began with a gift of 25 objects from the Northwest Coast in 1928. The collection now encompasses nearly 1,500 objects from the major cultural regions across the continent, from ancient to contemporary times. Noted pieces include a Bella Coola frontlet from the Northwest Coast, an Anishinabe beaded blanket from Minnesota, a painted tipi cover from the Plains, and a ceramic and silver collection from the Southwest region. Recent acquisitions include a large, vibrantly painted kachina figure representing the Butterfly Maiden (left), a Hopi symbol of regeneration and renewal.

more about the collection »

Joe D. Horse Capture
Associate Curator of Native American Art
profile »

Modern Spirit: The Art of George Morrison

Wells Fargo Community Room

Presenter: W. Jackson Rushing III

Join us for an illustrated lecture that documents, celebrates, and investigates the artistic achievement of George Morrison, the distinguished and beloved Chippewa modernist (1919-2000) whose artwork is held in numerous public and private collections. Morrison's journey from impoverished rural origin to international acclaim is a remarkable Minnesota story about regionalism, expatriation, urbanity, and homecoming, in which the significance of place is embedded in drawings, paintings, collages, prints, and sculptures.

Often inspired by land, water, and sky, Morrison mixed abstraction with representation to produce sensuous works of art that explore form, color, and texture. His award-winning wood collages and monumental totems were remarkable contributions to American modernism and have much to offer viewers in the 21st century.

W. Jackson Rushing III, PhD, is Eugene B. Adkins Presidential Professor of Art History and Mary Lou Milner Carver Chair at the University of Oklahoma. He is curator of the traveling retrospective exhibition, "Modern Spirit: The Art of George Morrison," which opens at the Plains Art Museum in Fargo on June 16.

Admission: $10; $5 for MIA members; free to Native American Art Affinity Group members. To reserve tickets, call (612) 870-6323 or go to tickets.artsmia.org.