Celebrating Women’s History Month: Jaune Quick-to-See Smith

In honor of Women’s History Month in March, the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum will feature stories of women who have left their mark on the world. This week, we feature Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, an artist and advocate for Indigenous people, rights, and representation.

Jaune Quick-to-See Smith

“These are my stories, every picture, every drawing is telling a story.” – Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, 2010

On January 24, 2025, activist and artist Jaune Quick-to-See Smith passed away at 85 after a battle with pancreatic cancer. Her death sparked tributes from across the art world, including the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum. Among Smith’s incredible body of work, she will be remembered as one of the first to put cracks in the “buckskin ceiling,” a term she coined for the invisible barrier keeping Indigenous artists from breaking into the industry’s upper echelon.

Smith, an enrolled Sqelix’u (Salish) member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Nation, is known for powerful works that blend abstraction and representation, and often explore Native American identity, cultural history, and social issues. Her art spans a variety of media, including painting, printmaking, sculpture, and installation art. Smith’s work challenged stereotypes, integrating Indigenous symbols with contemporary techniques. Throughout her career, she was a vocal advocate for Native American rights, and her work was exhibited globally, leaving a lasting impact on the art world and Indigenous representation in the arts. In 2011, the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum named Smith the fourth artist in its Living Artists of Distinction series, which was capped off with the exhibition Jaune Quick-to-See Smith: Landscapes of an American Modernist, curated by Carolyn Kastner, who was then the Associate Curator.

The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum’s permanent collection includes a small number of paintings and works on paper by artists other than O’Keeffe: Marsden Hartley, Arthur Dove, Rebecca Salsbury James, and others. Smith’s Peyote, 1991 has been part of the Museum’s permanent collection since the artist gifted the work after its display in Landscapes of an American Modernist. The exhibition was organized “to highlight the unique ways in which Smith expanded the American landscape tradition by joining modernist color and technique with her distinctive vocabulary figures,” Kastner wrote in a 2011 O’Keeffe Magazine article. Although Smith’s work has been widely exhibited and collected throughout the United States and Europe, Landscapes of an American Modernist critically analyzed within the discourse of the American landscape tradition.

To commemorate that exhibition, as well as Smith’s career, advocacy, and life, the Museum put Peyote on view for staff to reflect on, accompanied by literature about the artist, including catalogues and books published in coordination with retrospectives of her groundbreaking work.

“Now more than ever, it’s important to honor and uplift the bold voices who laid the groundwork for artistic advocacy,” said Museum Director Cody Hartley.  “Jaune Quick-to-See Smith was certainly one of the first Indigenous artists to use her talent and powerful artistic voice to bring racism, injustice, and appropriation to the forefront of conversations in American art. The Museum is beyond fortunate to have a piece of hers in our collection, and bringing it out to remember her life seems fitting—it serves as a reminder that many of these struggles still exist, and this fight must still be bravely fought.”

Peyote is a fascinating and colorful mix of pastel, screen printing, and sketching. Eight abstract balls of dense scribbled lines in reddish brown, green, white and black pastels are scattered among the stenciled words “Water,” “Trees,” and “Peyote” which float within the composition surrounded by small singular portraits of five Native Americans along with outlines of buildings, trucks, and ravens or crows. During a special private viewing, Museum staff from across all departments were able to view the work for the first time in February, with Luce Curator of Art and Social Practice Bess Murphy on hand for a time to offer her knowledge and answer questions. Here are some reactions:

Left: Bess Murphy observing Peyote, 1991. Right: Deborah Garcia-Orona, Christina Kortz, and Sherri Sorenson reading literature on Smith.

Sherri Sorenson, Associate Collections Manager/Registrar of the Museum, recalled how Smith’s work helped her to land at the O’Keeffe after many years with the University of New Mexico Art Museum. When Kastner was researching for Landscape of an American Modernist, Sorenson was the Assistant Curator for Prints and Photography at UNM Art Museum. She assisted Kastner in her research by locating specific works and making them available for view and transport.

Many O’Keeffe staff members found the literature a helpful tool in comprehending the breadth of Smith’s career. The book Memory Map in particular showcased her installation art and sculpture work, which elicited strong reactions of awe. While many were familiar with the artist’s works on paper, most were surprised to see works like Trade Canoe: Fry Bread for the first time.

Maureen Doherty recalled learning about Smith in a lecture during her time as a student at UNM and the powerful impact the artist had on her career. She shifted her major to Art History, where Indigenous Studies became her favorite subjects. While Doherty was familiar with Smith’s work, she had never seen Peyote in person, despite working at the Museum for more than two years, first as a Visitor Services Associate and now as a Gifts & Records Administrator.

Curator of Digital Experience Liz Neely got a head start on Smith’s career and work after adapting a blog post from the gallery guide for Landscape of an American Modernist. The post, which you can read here, was written just after the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. acquired Smith’s Target, 1992, making it the first painting by a Native American artist to enter that museum’s collection.

While there are no current plans to display Peyote in the Museum galleries, a comprehensive view of Jaune Quick-to-See Smith’s work and career accomplishments can be viewed on the website of her gallery representation, the Garth Greenan Gallery. The Museum continues to send its condolences to Smith’s family and friends.