Columbia University’s Art Properties collection of Native American Art & Cultural Heritage Objects, based in Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, includes about 500 objects made mostly during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by mostly unidentified American Indian and Native Alaskan artists and makers. The collection is predominantly from the Southwest (Navajo/Diné and Pueblo nations), but also includes objects made by Plains Indians, Inupiat, Nez Percé, and other American Indian tribes. Also in the collection are twenty-six ceramic vessels made by unidentified Ancestral Puebloan and Mimbres peoples of the Southwest, dating from about 1000-1200 CE. (Art Properties also holds works of art and cultural heritage objects made by unidentified Indigenous peoples of Canada, Mexico, and Central/South America, but this webpage focuses on US-related Native American tribes.)

The first part of the Native American collection was brought together in the 1920s and 1930s by Wendell T. Bush (1866-1941), a Columbia philosophy professor interested in global religions and rituals, who encouraged students to learn directly from the objects in his care. After his death, the collection was stewarded by the Department of Religion, put on display (first in Low Library, then in Kent Hall), and had a curator oversee it and add objects over time to enhance its use as a study collection. In the early 1980s, the collection was accessioned into Art Properties and gradually objects were transferred to the department for preservation and continued access for education and research. The Bush collection includes objects from East Asia and other parts of the globe, but it is predominantly a Native American collection.

The second part was acquired in 1997 when 63 Native American works of art, predominantly ceramics and textiles, were approved by the Provost-appointed Committee on Art Properties as a gift-in-kind from husband and wife Columbia alum Stanley B. Stein and Caroline Stein. The Stein gift also included 45 photogravures by Edward Curtis from his multi-volume book and portfolio series The North American Indian (1907-1930), a complete set of which is available for consultation in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library (B302.82 C942 13V Folio & F-Flat).

In 1990, the United States government passed the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). Among other things, this law recognizes the rights of lineal descendants, Indian Tribes, and Native Hawaiian organizations in certain Native American cultural items, and provides processes for the protection and return of such items.

This webpage is an effort on the part of Art Properties to provide transparency and awareness about the Native American objects in our care as we strive toward the highest professional standards for ethical stewardship of these objects.

The 1997 gift of Native American objects from the Steins initiated action by Art Properties to begin work toward compliance with NAGPRA. Read more about the work completed by Art Properties as of August 2021.

In 2024, Art Properties began taking steps to comply with new NAGPRA regulations, which went into effect on January 12, 2024. This work is ongoing and updates will be posted on this webpage over time.

Below is a list of links to resources demonstrating how the Native American objects in Art Properties have been organized, cataloged, stewarded, displayed, and researched in support of Columbia University’s educational mission. In 2022 and 2023, Art Properties received awards from the Columbia University Libraries’ Antiracism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusiveness (ADEI) program, which supported research projects on aspects of the collection by two graduate students, as well as the rehousing and imaging of selected objects.

Documentation

• Inventory of objects submitted in fulfillment of NAGPRA compliance (PDF sorted by Culture; last updated November 2021)
• Native American objects cataloged in CLIO
• Selection of Native American objects with study images in JSTOR Public Collection

Student Research Reports

• Kachina and Kokko: Hopi and Zuni Figures in the Art Properties Collection at Columbia University by Darcy Olmstead (MA in Art History, Spring 2023)
• Bird Motifs and Pueblo Pottery in the Art Properties Collection at Columbia University by Michael Gibson-Prugh (MA in American History, Fall 2023)

Displays

• Object Relations: Indigenous Belongings (This project was guest-curated by Alan Michelson, artist, curator, writer, lecturer and Mohawk member of the Six Nations of the Grand River. It was displayed from December 2021 to March 2022 at Columbia’s Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery.)
• Messages Across Time and Space: Inupiat Drawings from the 1890s at Columbia University (This project was organized by Prof. Elizabeth Hutchinson, Barnard College and Dept. of Art History and Archaeology, and her students. It was displayed from September to November 2015 at Columbia’s Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race.)

As of January 2024, in compliance with the new NAGPRA regulations, Art Properties is not permitting any exhibit of, access to, or research on Native American funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony in its collection without appropriate consent from lineal descendants, Indian Tribes, or Native Hawaiian organizations.

Art Properties is committed to consultations with lineal descendants, Indian Tribes, and Native Hawaiian organizations as part of its mission to maintain professional standards of ethical stewardship for the University collections. For all inquiries and communications regarding Art Properties collections, including NAGPRA and our Indigenous collections, see our contact information below and in the sidebar.

All works in Art Properties, Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University in the City of New York