Jaune Quick–to–See Smith

Painter and printmaker Jaune Quick-to-See Smith (1940–2025) developed a practice that expanded to include collage, drawing and mixed media. A member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, with Métis and Shoshone ancestry, she drew on an Indigenous worldview in her work and addressed Native American identity, histories of oppression and environmental issues. Commercial slogans, maps, signs evoking petroglyphs, drawings and overlaid texts intersect in compositions inspired by her personal experience.

Early in her career, her painted or engraved landscapes regularly depict her horse Cheyenne alongside tipis, tools, pottery and other Indigenous artefacts. She later gradually introduced collage into her paintings and prints, notably using calico, muslin and wire mesh, to which she applied ink. In the 1990s, she began the *I See Red* series, which she continued intermittently. Her work addresses tribal politics, human rights and contemporary environmental issues with humour.

Her art studies began in 1960 at Olympic College in Bremerton, where she earned a degree in art, and continued at the University of Washington in Seattle. She earned a bachelor’s degree in art education from Framingham State University in 1976, followed by a Master in Arts from the University of New Mexico in 1980. She supports the Indigenous art community by organising exhibitions and collaborations. Her work also includes an in situ sculpture in Yerba Buena Gardens, San Francisco.

*Pow Wow Dancer* (1996), described in a sale notice as a mixed-media work on paper, measures 76 × 56 cm; it is signed at the lower right and dated and titled on the verso.

Works recorded at auction

Germann

Pow Wow Dancer, 1996

Mixed media on paper

Original catalogue wording

Pow Wow Dancer, 1996
Mischtechnik auf Papier.

Date to be documented

Catalogue reference — sale not confirmed

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