AFA Autumn 2019

Autumn 94 www.afamag.com | w ww.incollect.com Jim Mirabel, a member of the Taos Pueblo and Walter Ufer’s friend, domestic employee, and model, is depicted in this expressive portrait. Ufer was a political radical and a passionate Trotskyite who frequently protested the U.S. government’s treatment of American Indians. Upon the artist’s death, Mirabel and another of Ufer’s friends distributed his ashes, in accordance with his wishes, into the winds over the Taos Valley in New Mexico. Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, a member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Nation in Montana, became the first Native Academician in 2011. Of her diploma work, Snake Dance , she has said, “In a way I was painting a diary of my life.”  2 top: Walter Ufer (1876–1936), Self-Portrait, n.d. Oil on canvas, 30¼ x 25 inches. National Academy of Design, New York; ANA diploma presentation, December 6, 1920 (1271-P). Courtesy American Federation of Arts. left: Walter Ufer (1876–1936), Jim, 1918. Oil on canvas, 40⅛ x 36¼ inches. National Academy of Design, New York; NA diploma presentation, October 4, 1926 (1272-P). Courtesy American Federation of Arts. right: Jaune Quick-to-See Smith (b. 1940), Snake Dance, 2011. Oil, collage, and mixed media on canvas, 72 x 48 inches. National Academy of Design, New York; NA diploma presentation, November 7, 2012 (2012.79). Photo Credit: Image by Google © Jaune Quick-to-See Smith. Courtesy Garth Greenan Gallery, New York and American Federation of Arts.