Honoring the Life and Art of Angel De Cora
Saturday, October 16, 2021
A Gravesite Memorial and a Zoom Panel Discussion to Honor the Life and Contributions of Angel De Cora.
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Cyanotype Photograph of
Angel De Cora at Smith College Collection of Historic Northampton |
Frontispiece by Angel De Cora for the book The Middle Five: Indian Boys at School by Francis LaFlesche
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Angel De Cora's most influential work, Natalie Curtis’s
The Indians’ Book |
Hinųk Max̄iwi-Kerenąka (Winnebago/Ho-Chunk) whose name means “She Returns to the Sky” was also known by her English name Angel De Cora. She was an influential artist and illustrator, designer, teacher, and the first Native American graduate of Smith College (class of 1896). She brought Native American imagery into the graphic arts in respectful and resonant ways. Join us as we honor De Cora’s life (1871-1919) and contributions on the 125th anniversary of her graduation from Smith College and 150th anniversary of her birth.
12 noon: In Person Walk
All are invited at noon to walk from Historic Northampton to her grave in Bridge Street Cemetery where we will lay a wreath. De Cora died in Northampton in 1919 from complications of the flu.
2:00 pm: Zoom Panel Discussion
At 2:00 pm, there will be a zoom presentation about De Cora’s life and work by scholars, curators, and artists:
- Yvonne Tiger (Cherokee, Seminole, Muscogee (Creek) Nations of Oklahoma)
- Kiara M. Vigil (Dakota/Apache)
- Elizabeth James-Perry (Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head-Aquinnah)
- Sunshine Thomas-Bear (Bear Clan, Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska)
- N.C. Christopher Couch
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Panelist Biographies
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Yvonne Tiger (Cherokee, Seminole, Muscogee (Creek) Nations of Oklahoma) is a scholar, curator, and art critic, and member of a prominent Native American artistic family. Her research focuses on Native American art, museums and cultural representation, Indigenous graphic novels, and on the work of Angel De Cora, about whom she has spoken widely, including at the School of American Research, Santa Fe NM. She has a BA from Smith College (’03) where she wrote her honors thesis on De Cora, holds two master’s degrees from the University of Oklahoma, in history and art history, and is currently a doctoral student in the Cultural, Social and Political Thought Program, University of Lethbridge, Ontario, and a 2021-22 Native American Curatorial Fellow at the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem MA. She is a contributing writer to First American Art magazine, has been a Senior Program Manager/Research Associate for the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, and has taught Native American Studies at Montana State University-Northern, Havre MT. She will be a scholar in residence for the week at the 5 Colleges giving presentations, visiting classes, and contributing to curricular initiatives incorporating De Cora’s work and legacy.
Kiara M. Vigil (Dakota/Apache) is associate professor of American Studies at Amherst College. Her research and teaching interests are grounded in Native American and Indigenous Studies. She has a PhD in American Culture from the University of Michigan, master’s degrees from Teachers College, Columbia University, and Dartmouth College, and a B.A. from Tufts University. She is the author of Indigenous Intellectuals: Sovereignty, Citizenship, and the American Imagination, 1890-1930 (Cambridge University Press 2015); her article, “Who was Henry Standing Bear? Remembering Lakota Activism from the Early Twentieth Century,” won the Great Plains Quarterly Frederick C. Luebke Award for Outstanding Regional Scholarship. She was Jan Cohn Fellow and Lecturer in American Studies, Trinity College (2020), Mellon Mentor Fellow, University of Connecticut (2021), is a member of the Scholarly Advisory Board, The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, and a Council Member for the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (2021-24).
Elizabeth James-Perry (Aquinnah Wampanoag), is an internationally known traditional and contemporary artist. She was awarded a Traditional Arts Fellowship in Textiles and Wampum by the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Elizabeth’s approach highlights the link between Wampanoag sovereignty, land, and visual expression. Her Beyond 1620: Wampanoag Voices recording about King Philips Sash connected the rare textile to the colonization of eastern tribal territory, was later played to the Massachusetts State Legislature as part of the initiative to replace the state seal. She designs authentic materials, most recently for Tashtego in Moby Dick at A.R.T., and for Manahatta at Yale Repertory Theatre. She documented the beauty of tribal homelands as a producer of background scenery for As Nutayunean, the Wampanoag Language Reclamation Program documentary film. Elizabeth holds a degree in Marine Science from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, and a certificate for Digital Tribal Stewardship from Washington State University. She spent over a decade engaged in Historic Preservation for her tribal nation and was a member of USET’s Culture and Heritage Committee and was the Federal Tribal Co-Lead of the Northeast Ocean Planning Body. She is currently an artist-in-residence at Amherst College.
Sunshine Thomas-Bear (Bear Clan, Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska) is Director, Angel DeCora Memorial Museum and Research Center, Winnebago, Nebraska; Tribal Historic Preservation Officer (THPO); and Cultural Preservation Director, for the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska. She works to preserve the history and revitalize and invigorate cultural lifeways of the Hōcąk Nīšoc Haci (Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska). She has a BA in Education from University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and AS and AA degrees in Business and Native American Studies from Little Priest Tribal College, Winnebago, NE. She was instruction coordinator and teacher in HoChunk Renaissance, the Language Program of the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska, and is supervising director of the documentary film History of the Hōcąk Nīšoc Haci (2020).
N. C. Christopher Couch has a Ph.D. in art history from Columbia University, has curated exhibitions of Native American and Pre-Columbian art at the American Museum of Natural History, Americas Society, and Smith College Museum of Art, and is the author of The Festival Cycle of the Aztec Codex Borbonicus and Faces of Eternity: Masks of the Pre-Columbian Americas.
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About Angel De Cora
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Angel De Cora studied with some of the finest artists of the day, including tonalist painter Dwight William Tryon at Smith and illustrator Howard Pyle at Drexel University. Beginning her career as an illustrator with the most prestigious magazine of the day, she wrote and illustrated two stories for Harper’s. She illustrated books for a series of influential and successful authors, including Francis La Flesche (Omaha), the first professional Native American ethnologist; Zitkala-Ša (Gertrude Bonnin, Yankton Dakota), influential writer and activist, co-founder of the National Council of American Indians; and Elaine Goodale Eastman, collaborator with her husband Charles Eastman (Santee Dakota) in his work as historian and activist. De Cora was also an influential teacher of the arts to Native American students at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
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Other Events Honoring Angel De Cora
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Angel De Cora: Out of Place and Ahead of Her Time
Smith College, Kixie Denison Fieldman ’53 Endowed Virtual Event
Yvonne Tiger with Christen Mucher, Smith College American Studies
October 17, 2021 at 4 - 5:30 PM
Advance registration required.
https://smith.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_0n3I2W1WRYuW90s4-a6NzA
Smith College, Kixie Denison Fieldman ’53 Endowed Virtual Event
Yvonne Tiger with Christen Mucher, Smith College American Studies
October 17, 2021 at 4 - 5:30 PM
Advance registration required.
https://smith.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_0n3I2W1WRYuW90s4-a6NzA
Angel De Cora
Winnebago Artist and Innovator
BOMBYX Center for Arts & Equity
Winnebago Artist and Innovator
BOMBYX Center for Arts & Equity
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Curator and scholar Yvonne Tiger (Smith ’03) will introduce De Cora’s work and her powerful but nearly-forgotten legacy as an educator of Native American youth, a respected artist and illustrator who worked with the finest Native American authors and intellectuals of her day, and an innovative graphic designer and book artist whose work resonates in today’s visual world. The multi-media presentation will be followed by a reception in the Parish Hall. Images of Angel de Cora’s work will be on view in the Parish Hall through December 2nd.
Tuesday, October 19, 2021 at 7 pm
Doors open at 6:30 pm BOMBYX Center for Arts & Equity 130 Pine Street, Florence, MA 01062 This event is FREE but please RSVP. |
Rediscovering Native American Illustrator and Designer Angel De Cora
A Public Talk by Yvonne Tiger
October 21, 2021 at 6:30 PM
Society of Illustrators, 128 East 63rd Street, New York
(Advance registration required.)
https://societyillustrators.org/event/angeldecora/
Angel De Cora, Illustrator and Graphic Designer (1871-1919)
An Exhibition at Forbes Library curated by Donna Calacone
October 5 - 31, 2021
Forbes Library, 20 West Street, Northampton, MA
www.forbeslibrary.org
An Exhibition at Forbes Library curated by Donna Calacone
October 5 - 31, 2021
Forbes Library, 20 West Street, Northampton, MA
www.forbeslibrary.org
Funders
Events honoring Angel De Cora are supported by an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant awarded by Five Colleges, Inc.; by the Kixie Denison Fieldman ’53 Endowment, Program for the Study of Women and Gender, Department of Art, Department of American Studies, Office for Equity and Inclusion, and Smith College Museum of Art of Smith College; and Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Images (left to right):
- Cyanotype photograph of Angel De Cora at Smith College, Historic Northampton.
- Frontispiece by Angel De Cora for the book The Middle Five: Indian Boys at School by Francis LaFlesche.
- Her most influential work, Natalie Curtis’s The Indians’ Book, has been called a masterpiece of design, typography, and illustration. The image is from the Tumblr website Women in Illustration.