Collection
Native American Art
PEM’s Native American art collection celebrates a continuum of Indigenous creative brilliance and honors a multiplicity of worldviews.
PEM houses some of the oldest active collections of Native American art in the Western Hemisphere, commencing with the museum’s founding in 1799 and continuing through today.
Spanning more than 10,000 years of Indigenous visual expression in the Americas, these works cross boundaries of region, period and medium, and emphasize the continuum of creativity and character of change that undergird Native American art. This distinguished collection is a vital testament to thousands of individual artists from hundreds of distinct Native nations, each with its own history, language and artistic expressions.
Native communities grow out of a deep relationship to place. Place shapes how Native people know themselves; it holds memories, people and ways of being. These lands have borne witness to changes over time, from a massive glacial retreat to human explorations and colonizations.
The majority of PEM’s Native holdings date to the 19th century, a period of intense colonization on the continent. East India Marine Society sea captains collected works during trade voyages to the Pacific Northwest, South America, New England and the Canadian Maritimes. Federal Indian agents, missionaries and members of exploring expeditions also augmented the collection during this time. Many of these objects are significant for their singular nature, superior quality and known provenance. They reflect cultural interactions, power dynamics and the conscious and unconscious attitudes of their collectors.
In the late 20th century, PEM began to help create critical bridges between the historical and contemporary in Native art and culture. We have focused on acquiring modern and contemporary Native art to complement our superlative early works. Our collection now includes hundreds of late 20th- and 21st-century works of Native art, including new media installations, fashion, photography, textiles, paintings and works on paper.
By embracing visual expressions of Native cultures as art — the fluid crystallization of current trends of thought, rooted to the personal and cultural life experiences of the individual — and framing Native artists as agents of constant change, we work to dismantle stereotypes and bring to light the ongoing and brutal legacies of colonization. Through exhibitions, programming, scholarship and key acquisitions, we present Native art and culture in ways that honor diverse worldviews, ongoing vitality and creative continuities. Above all, we acknowledge enduring relationships that exist between Native peoples and nations, their belongings and this storied land.
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Highlights from this collection
ON VIEW
Bibi k’inpi (cradleboard), about 1840
On view in On This Ground: Being and Belonging in America.
ON VIEW
David Weeden (Mashpee Wampanoag), from the ongoing “Critical Indigenous Photographic Exchange” series, 2019
On view in On This Ground: Being and Belonging in America.
ON VIEW
Hanödaga:yas (Town Destroyer), edition 1/3, 2018
On view in On This Ground: Being and Belonging in America.
ON VIEW
Indian with Beaded Headdress, 1978
On view in On This Ground: Being and Belonging in America.
ON VIEW
Tsu Heidei Shugaxtutaan (We Will Again Open This Container of Wisdom That Has Been Left in Our Care), Parts I and II, 2006
On view in On This Ground: Being and Belonging in America.
ON VIEW
Companion Species: Cosmos, Sunrise, Flint, 2019–21
On view in On This Ground: Being and Belonging in America.
Sculpture, 1500s
Likely Pawtucket band of Massachusett artist, name once known, Sculpture, 1500s. Naumkeag (now Salem, Massachusetts). Basalt. Gift of Miss Bessie Eaton, 1898. E50296.
On view in On This Ground: Being and Belonging in America.
Loans and acquisitions
PEM is committed to providing the broadest possible access to its collection through the loan of objects for educational and scholarly purposes. Learn how to request a loan from the museum’s collection.
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