Have You Heard?

The Heard Museum opened its doors 90 years ago in December of 1929. Once the private collection of Phoenix residents Dwight and Maie Heard, today it is the largest private museum in the world dedicated to American Indian art. The museum, with its beautiful Spanish Colonial architecture, includes 130,000 square feet of galleries, performance spaces and sculpture gardens.

THE HEARD FAMILY HISTORY

The Heards, who had moved to Phoenix from Chicago in 1895, had a passion for everything Southwest. Dwight was a successful real estate developer who also owned the Bartlett- Heard Land and Cattle Company and served as president of the Arizona Cotton Growers’ Association. He purchased the area’s newspaper, which later became the Valley’s “Arizona Republic,” in 1912.

Maie was a philanthropist who gave much back to her community. In addition to donating the land for the Heard Museum, she helped open the first library in Phoenix in 1908, as well as donated the land where Phoenix Art Museum now sits.

The Heards also purchased La Ciudad, a Native American ruin near Van Buren and 19th streets. The items uncovered during excavation of La Ciudad continue to e aprt of the museum's collection today

While Dwight passed away in 1929, just before the opening of the museum, Maie went on to collect art and encourage the understanding of Native cultures util her death in 1951 at age 83.

WHAT MAKES THE HEARD MUSEUM UNIQUE?

In addition to great examples of Southwestern art, the Heard also contains creative works from other areas, particularly the Great Plains and California.

The Heard is known for taking chances and presenting works by contemporary, groundbreaking artists. In the 1960s, the museum became renowned for exhibiting the works of Kiowa-Comanche artist Blackbear Bosin. In 1964, it presented the abstract paintings of dancers created by Yanktonai artist Oscar Howe. Just a few years earlier, Howe's work had been removed from the Philbrook Indian Art Annual exhibition in Tulsa because it did not "look Indian."

This trend continued into the 1980's, with one-person exhibitions for R.C.Gorman, Al Momaday, Allan Houser, and Fritz Scholder. The Heard initiated a series of invitational sculpture exhibitions and added an arts invitational in the 1980s. Today, the museum’s Fine Arts Curator Erin Joyce continues to introduce contemporary art exhibitions.

WHAT NOT TO MISS AT THE HEARD MUSEUM

The museum’s signature exhibit is “HOME: Native People in the Southwest,” highlighting the importance of land, community and family to natives of the region. According to Chief Curator Diana Pardue, “The exhibition features the museum’s permanent collection and was planned with the help of Indigenous consultants throughout the Southwest.”

The exhibit includes thousands of pieces of various kinds of jewelry, pottery, baskets, beadwork and more than 500 Hopi katsina dolls. Interactive displays offer videos from the Indigenous consultants take on life in the Southwest.

The museum’s most visited and thematically powerful exhibition is “Away from Home: American Indian Boarding School Stories.”

“It was the first major exhibition to explore the complex histories surrounding the United States’ government efforts during the 19th and 20th centuries to educate and assimilate American Indian students through the controversial and often tragic practice of removing children from their families and forcibly placing them in boarding schools,” says Purdue of the exhibit’s significance.

This moving exhibit originally opened in 2000 as a fiveyear installation, with funding by the National Endowment for the Humanities. It recently underwent renovations, and continues to tell the cultural story.

WHAT IS HAPPENING TODAY

The Heard Museum works closely with Indigenous peoples from throughout the U.S. and Canada to bring in new programs and exhibits. The Museum offers several annual events that, according to Director David M. Roche, “provide a great opportunity to meet artists and learn about their artistic inspirations. From small group lectures and intimate marketplaces to the acclaimed Guild Indian Fair & Market, there’s something for everyone.”

Each February, more than 70 American Indian and Canadian First Nations hoop dancers compete at the Heard Museum World Championship Hoop Dance Contest. Guests can experience the work of more than 700 native artists from 116 tribal affiliations in the U.S. and Canada each March during the Heard Museum Guild Indian Fair and Market and Holidays at the Heard is a winter favorite, where families and friends enjoy live performances, artist demonstrations, hands-on activities and more.

“The exhibition features the museum’s permanent collection and was planned with the help of Indigenous consultants throughout the Southwest.”

— CHIEF CURATOR DIANA PARDUE

BY SUSAN LANIER-GRAHAM