Highlights

The Heard Museum in Phoenix is presenting October Art: The Collection of Delores Browne Abelson, an exhibition honoring the ballerina, teacher, and gallerist who spent a decade on Park Avenue championing Native American artists before the broader art world caught up.

The show features approximately 35 works by artists including Gwen Tafoya (Santa Clara Pueblo), Hazel Koyiyumptewa (Hopi), Harry Fonseca (Nisenan Maidu), Stella Charvarria (Santa Clara Pueblo), and Dan Namingha (Hopi). Alongside the artwork, the museum is displaying ephemera from Browne's archive — letters, photographs, and pamphlets — drawn from her personal papers.

Browne (1935–2023) founded October Art Ltd. in 1984, locating the gallery alongside the Whitney Museum of American Art at Philip Morris on Park Avenue. The gallery was devoted to championing Native American artists from the Southwest, including Namingha, Orville Tsinnie (Diné), Fonseca, and Verma Nequatewa (Hopi). It closed after 10 years, though Browne continued to advocate for Native artists throughout her life.

Before the gallery, Browne was a dancer. She entered formal training at the Judimar School of Dance in Philadelphia in 1949, then joined the New York Negro Ballet in the late 1950s, performing principal roles and touring internationally. By the late 1960s she had transitioned to teaching and pursued initiatives supporting Black dancers — an advocacy that, the museum notes, naturally extended to championing Native American arts.

The exhibition is curated by Roshii Montaño (Diné), a Heard Museum curator who previously held positions at Stanford University, LACMA, and the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology. Alaiyo Bradshaw, former manager of October Art Ltd. and Browne's close friend, is quoted in the exhibition: "If I could describe Delores in one word, it would be generous."

The exhibition runs through October 26, 2026.

Sources

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  1. heard.org retrieved 2026-05-06T08:11:31.791349+00:00

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