Female Effigy Jar

Label

These works represent Native women seen through different lenses and in divergent styles. Cast in bronze (from an original in Indiana limestone), the figure in Allan Houser’s Taza stands upright, wearing an elegant shawl and bearing a contemplative gaze. One of the most prominent Native artists of the twentieth century, Houser is well known for his sculptures, which often include depictions of Native women. The effigy jar, made by a Tohono O’odham maker, merges a female figure with an ear of corn. The combination of womanhood and corn here conveys the importance of both subjects as symbols of survival and social organization. Similar in theme, Jason Garcia’s ceramic tile Corn Maiden #29 is a part of a larger series that depicts young women dressed for the Pueblo corn dance while also highlighting their contemporary lives. Here, a dancer leans against an adobe wall with a television antenna in the background.

From the 2022 exhibition Unbroken: Native American Ceramics, Sculpture, and Design, curated by Dillen Peace '19, Native American Art Intern and Sháńdíín Brown '20, Native American Art Intern 

Course History

ANTH 3.01, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Sienna Craig, Winter 2022

Writing Program 5.24, Photographic Representations, Amanda Wetsel, Winter 2023

Writing Program 5.25, Photographic Representations, Amanda Wetsel, Winter 2023

Exhibition History

Native Ecologies: Recycle, Resist, Protect, Sustain, Owen Robertson Cheatham Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 26, 2019-January 5, 2020

Unbroken: Native American Ceramics, Sculpture, and Design, Ivan Albright Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 22, 2022-March 12, 2023.

Provenance

Clara G. Corser Turner Churchill (1851-1945) and Frank Carroll Churchill (1850-1912), Arizona, 1904-1907; bequeathed to present collection, 1946.

This record is part of an active database that includes information from historic documentation that may not have been recently reviewed. Information may be inaccurate or incomplete. We also acknowledge some language and imagery may be offensive, violent, or discriminatory. These records reflect the institution’s history or the views of artists or scholars, past and present. Our collections research is ongoing.

We welcome questions, feedback, and suggestions for improvement. Please contact us at: Hood.Collections@dartmouth.edu