(INDIANAPOLIS) –More than $1.5 million dollars has been given directly to Native artists through the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indian and Western Art’s Fellowship for Native American Fine Art.  The program has yielded the world’s finest collection of Native contemporary art and earned the Eiteljorg Museum recognition as a leader in contemporary Indigenous art.

 

Today, the Eiteljorg Fellowship for Native American Fine Art cemented that status as it announces the five artists who will join a cadre of nearly 35 previous Fellows as indigenous contemporary artists whose works demand that the mainstream art world take notice.

 

In its seventh biennium, the Eiteljorg Fellowship program is giving four unrestricted grants of $25,000 each to juried Native artists working in the field of contemporary art, as well as one $25,000 grant to an invited artist based on his contributions made over a lifetime.

 

The 2011 Eiteljorg Fellows (and their tribal affiliations) are:

 

·        Bonnie Devine (Ojibwa / Serpent River First Nation), Toronto

·        Skawennati Fragnito (Mohawk), Montreal, Canada

·        Duane Slick (Meskwaki) North Provenance, Rhode Island

·        Anna Tsouhlarakis (Navajo/Creek), Washington, D.C.

·        Invited artist: Alan Michelson (Mohawk), New York City

 

In 2010 the Eiteljorg Museum launched a website, www.fellowship.eiteljorg.org, to provide online access to hundreds of works by Native artists and to serve as a digital forum for the exchange of ideas.

 

From Nov. 12, 2011, through Feb. 19, 2012, the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art in Indianapolis will showcase the works from this year’s group of Fellows in a special exhibition. In conjunction with the exhibition, the museum will publish a catalogue with images, scholarly articles and essays. A gala dinner and symposium will bring the artists to Indianapolis and allow the public to experience contemporary fine art.

 

The museum also will purchase more than $100,000 in art for its permanent collection from the Fellowship artists.

 

Since its inception in 1999, the Eiteljorg Fellowship for Native American Fine Art has awarded more than $850,000 in unrestricted grants and added more than 200 pieces of art by 35 Native fine artists to the Eiteljorg Museum’s permanent collection. As a result, the Eiteljorg is acknowledged to have the finest collection of Native contemporary art in the world.

 

The Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art seeks to inspire the appreciation and understanding of the art, history and cultures of the American West and the indigenous peoples of North America. The museum, which opened in 1989, is located in Downtown Indianapolis’ White River State Park. For general information about the museum and to learn more about exhibits and events, call (317) 636-WEST (9378) or visit www.eiteljorg.org. For more information on the Fellowship program, the art and the Fellows visit www.fellowship.eiteljorg.org

 

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