Native North American Art By Janet Catherine Berlo, Ruth B. Phillips
(Paperback, 1998)

An innovative survey of Native North American art history which fully incorporates substantive new research and scholarship and examines such issues as gender representation the colonial encounter and contemporary arts By encompassing both the sacred and secular political and domestic the ceremonial and commercial it shows the importance of the visual arts in maintaining the integrity of spiritual social political and economic systems within Native North American societies This exciting new investigation explores the indigenous arts of the US and Canada from the early pre-contact period to the present day stressing the conceptual and iconographic continuities over five centuries and across an immensely diverse range of regionsThe richness of Native American art is emphasized through
discussions of basketry wood and rock carvings dance masks and beadwork alongside the contemporary vitality of paintings and installations by modern artists such as Robert Davidson Emmi Whitehorse and Alex Janvier &the best guide yet to understanding the complexities of Native North American art a solidly ground sophisticated history combining art history anthropology and cultural studies splendidly well-written useful and timely& Gerald McMaster Curator of Art Canadian Museum of Civilization