Highlights

Cherokee artist Kay WalkingStick is returning to the Heard Museum as co-curator of Paintings from the Heard Collection, a survey of more than 30 large-scale works by Native artists whose practices span generations, geographies, and aesthetic approaches — more than two decades after she guest-curated the 2002 exhibition So Fine! Masterworks of Fine Art from the Heard Museum.

The exhibition is co-organized with Roshii Montaño (Diné), a curator at the Heard Museum in Phoenix who previously held positions at Stanford University, LACMA, and the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology. Writing in the exhibition catalogue, WalkingStick articulated her measure of great art: "I expect great art to move me, to touch me, to express something meaningful," adding, "I want to laugh, cry, be mystified or enlightened… Great art is often about the mythic, if we understand the mythic to mean the great unknowables — Birth, Life, Death, Creation, God."

The roster moves from early modernists — Fritz Scholder and Joan Hill among them — to leading contemporary voices including Kent Monkman, Emmi Whitehorse, and Steven Yazzie. Several works will be on view for the first time in decades, according to the museum. The Heard's painting collection consists exclusively of works by American Indian artists, with holdings dating to the early 1900s and expanded through purchases from single-artist and invitational exhibitions featuring artists from the U.S. and Canada.

The presentation opens in the Freeman Gallery alongside Kay WalkingStick / Hudson River School, which runs through May 25, 2026. On June 26, the exhibition expands into the Grand Gallery. The show is made possible through support from Heard Museum Members.

Paintings from the Heard Collection runs through September 7, 2026, at the Heard Museum, 2301 N. Central Ave., Phoenix.

Sources

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  1. heard.org retrieved 2026-05-06T08:11:30.397783+00:00
  2. heard.org retrieved 2026-05-06T08:11:30.397783+00:00

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