Jaune Quick-to-See Smith

Spotlighting her artworks from the Saint Louis Art Museum collection, this exhibition spans the career of Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, one of the most celebrated contemporary artists of Indigenous heritage.

Across four decades and multiple media, Smith has developed a singular vision in contemporary art. Deploying a fragmentary aesthetic that layers text, found imagery and the artist’s gestural brushstrokes, Smith advances Indigenous perspectives on land, history and art.

The exhibition marks the SLAM debut for State Names Map: Cahokia and Trade Canoe: Cahokia, a recent painting and sculpture that Smith created for Counterpublic in 2023. Based on two of her long-running series, the painting and sculpture respond to deep histories of cross-cultural trade and Indigenous displacement associated with the St. Louis region.

Early pastels by Smith and a series of prints from the mid-1990s, many of which the artist made in St. Louis at Washington University’s Island Press, provide a long view of the artist’s career.