The Indian Arts and Crafts Board accession records collection includes documents and photographs related to works of art accessioned into the IACB collection from it's inception in 1935 to 1999. The collection also includes docuements related to objects accessioned into the IACB's run Southern Plains Indian Museum. The collection is nearly comprehensive and includes works of art from Alaska Native artists to Catawba pottery, and includes artwork from several renowned artists including, Maria Martinez (San Ildefonso Pueblo), James Kivetoruk Moses (Inupiaq), and Don Morse "Lelooska" Smith (Cherokee).
Scope and Contents:
The records in this collection consist of the original accession records for the Indian Arts and Crafts Board Headquarters Collection. The bulk of the records are made up of original catalog cards, purchase orders, invoices, and correspondence between artists, IACB field representatives, commercial entities, and various directors of the IACB, including Robert G. Hart. There is also documentation detailing purchases and transactions with the IACB's Southern Plains Indian Museum of objects that are housed within that institution. Additionally, the records include brochures, business cards, object tags and labels, object lists and descriptions, newspaper clippings, journal articles, negatives, photographs, and slides. Objects that were stolen during a 1980 theft in Washington, D.C. are noted within the records as well. Artists that can be found within the records include, Papovi Da, Allan Houser, Oscar Howe, Fred Kabotie, Julian Martinez, Maria Martinez, James Kivetoruk Moses, Ronald Senungetuk, Don Morse Smith (Lelooksa) Pablita Velarde, Amos Wallace, Lincoln Wallace, and many other prominent artists.
Arrangement:
Arranged in three series: Series 1: Original Accession Notes, Series 2: Accession Information, Series 3: Miscellaneous Accession Information. All material is arranged by catalog number and chronologically when date is known.
Biographical / Historical:
The Indian Arts and Crafts Board (IACB), a federal agency within the Department of the Interior, was created by Congress through the Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1935. Its creation stemmed from the Indian Reorganization Act, often called the Indian New Deal, which sought to reverse assimilative government policies towards Native Americans and promote tribal self-governance.
Since its inception, the IACB has fulfilled its mission of promoting the economic development of federally recognized American Indians and Alaska Natives through the expansion of the Indian arts and crafts market by commissioning and purchasing works of art, while also supporting regional and tribal arts projects.
Initially, the IACB did not catalog works of art, and little documentation exists for some of the first objects that the entity acquired. Starting in the 1960s, the IACB began cataloguing the works of art within its collection and began acquiring objects on a grander scale, which it did throughout the 1980s.
In 2000, the IACB transferred its Headquarters Collection and associated accession documentation to the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian. This collection does not include objects from the IACB's three regional museums in Oklahoma, Montana, and South Dakota.The collection contains a vast array of art from ceramics to works on paper from a diverse number of Native American artists.
Provenance:
Transferred from the Indian Arts and Crafts Board, Department of the Interior, in 2000.
Restrictions:
Access to NMAI Archive Center collections is by appointment only, Monday - Friday, 9:30 am - 4:30 pm. Please contact the archives to make an appointment (phone: 301-238-1400, email: nmaiarchives@si.edu).
Rights:
Single photocopies may be made for research purposes. Permission to publish or broadbast materials from the collection must be requested from National Museum of the American Indian Archive Center. Please submit a written request to nmaiarchives@si.edu.
