Masters Series: Charles and Valerie Diker with David W. Penney Feb. 11: 6 p.m., Peristyle
The Toledo Museum of Art’s Masters Series continues with a conversation between collectors of Native American art Charles and Valerie Diker and David W. Penney, guest curator of Indigenous Beauty: Masterworks of American Indian Art from the Diker Collection. Brian Kennedy, director of the Museum, will moderate. The Masters Series is sponsored by the Museum Ambassadors and Yark Automotive Group.
Opening Celebration: Indigenous Beauty Feb. 12: 6-9 p.m., Canaday Gallery Celebrate the opening of Indigenous Beauty: Masterworks of American Indian Art from the Diker Collection at the Toledo Museum of Art. The touring exhibition organized by the American Federation of Arts features 120 extraordinary works by Native peoples across North America. The evening will begin with a 6 p.m. ceremony led by representatives of American Indian communities with ancestral ties to Ohio, including Chief Glenna J. Wallace of the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma, visual artist Richard Zane Smith of the Wyandotte Nation of Oklahoma and tribal historic preservation officer Paul Barton of the Seneca-Cayuga Nation of Oklahoma. Dancers and singers from the Ziibiwing Center of Anishinabe Culture & Lifeways in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan, will perform during the 6 p.m. ceremony and then again at 7 and 8 p.m.
Exhibition Tour: David W. Penney Feb. 13: 2 p.m., Canaday Gallery
David W. Penney, an internationally recognized scholar of American Indian art and guest curator of Indigenous Beauty: Masterworks of American Indian Art from the Diker Collection, leads a public tour of the exhibition. Penney contributed an essay to the exhibition catalogue and is author of “North American Indian Art” (2004), part of the Thames & Hudson “World of Art” series. Currently associate director of museum scholarship at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian, he previously served as curator of Native American art and vice president of exhibitions and collections strategies at the Detroit Institute of Arts where he led the creation of one of the nation’s finest Native American collections. His previous exhibitions have included Ancient Art of the American Woodland Indians (1985), Art of the American Indian Frontier, the Chandler/Pohrt Collection (1993–94) and The American Indian: Art and Culture between Myth and Reality (2012).
AIA-Toledo Society Lecture: Melissa Baltus, Art, Architecture, and Urbanization of Cahokia, Native North America's First City Feb. 19: 7 p.m., Little Theater
Every urban center, past and present, has a flavor that is unique to that particular place. The pre-Columbian Native American city of Cahokia (A.D. 1050-1350), located in the floodplain of the Mississippi River near modern-day St. Louis, was no different. The largest city north of Mexico, Cahokia had a unique architectural style that flourished early in the city’s history and was widely emulated. Melissa Baltus, an assistant professor and archaeologist in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Toledo, will discuss archaeologists’ understanding thus far of the art and architecture of Cahokia, its role in the creation of an urban space, as well as implications of stylistic changes during the waning years of Cahokia.
Reading: Margaret Noodin, Weweni: Poems in Anishinaabemowin and English April 9: 2 p.m., Little Theater
Margaret Noodin is an American poet who writes in English and the language of the Anishinaabe, which is spoken by members of the Odawa, Ojibwa and Algonquin peoples. She is an assistant professor of English and American studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Western Michigan University.
Lecture: Stephen Warren, Indian Removal Then and Now: A Retrospective on Race and Midwestern Identities March 26: 2 p.m., Little Theater
In 1824, Missouri Senator Thomas Hart Benton announced that the Indians “must know that . . . the power of the state is against them; and that, sooner or later, they must go.” In response, Native Ohioans sought to remain in their homeland by adopting cash-crop agriculture, converting to Christianity and accepting other, dramatic changes in their cultures. That they were removed from their homelands in spite of their efforts shocked many Americans then and now. Stephen Warren, an associate professor of history at the University of Iowa, will describe this history, discuss how indigenous peoples have tried in recent decades to reconnect with their Ohio homelands and explore ongoing challenges to those efforts. The author of The Worlds the Shawnee Made: Migration and Violence in Early America, Warren is the lead historian on a federally funded grant sponsored by the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma (2013-2016). He also is involved in collaborative projects with the Ohio Historical Society and with the 10 federally recognized tribes removed from Ohio prior to the Civil War. He previously served as a consultant and commentator on the WGBH/American Experience documentary “Tecumseh’s Vision.”
The American Federation of Arts (AFA) is the leader in traveling exhibitions internationally. A nonprofit institution founded in 1909, the AFA is dedicated to enriching the public’s experience and understanding of the visual arts through organizing and touring art exhibitions for presentation in museums around the world, publishing exhibition catalogues featuring important scholarly research, and developing educational programs.
The Toledo Museum of Art is a nonprofit arts institution funded through individual donations, foundation grants, corporate sponsorships and investments. The Ohio Arts Council helps fund programs at the Toledo Museum of Art through a sustainability grant program that encourages economic growth, educational excellence, and cultural enrichment for all Ohioans. Glass Pavilion® and Toledo Museum of Art Glass Pavilion® are registered service marks. Admission to the Museum is free. The Museum is open Tuesday and Wednesday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Thursday and Friday, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sunday, Noon to 5 p.m.; closed Monday and major holidays. Thursday evening hours are sponsored by Huntington Wealth Advisors. Friday evening hours are made possible by Fifth Third Bank. The Museum is located at 2445 Monroe Street at Scottwood Avenue, just west of the downtown business district and one block off I-75 with exit designations posted. For general information, visitors can call 419-255-8000 or 800-644-6862, or visit toledomuseum.org.
TOLEDO MUSEUM OF ART
2445 Monroe St,Toledo, OH 43620, United States
+1 (419) 255-8000
toledomuseum.org