Native Elements

Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, 2021
Jaune Quick-to-See Smith’s landmark retrospective at the Whitney in 2023 was the first retrospective for a Native artist organized by the museum. Photo: Grace Roselli/Pandora's BoxX Project
Julie Brener Davich
May 25, 2025

Right now, in adjacent galleries on West 20th Street, there are two noteworthy exhibitions of works by Native American artists. Garth Greenan Gallery is showing the final paintings that Salish and Kootenai artist Jaune Quick-to-See Smith made before she died, this past January, at age 85; and Hales Gallery has Cheyenne-inspired geometric paintings by 33-year-old Jordan Ann Craig. Two Chelsea shows might not seem like much, but it’s more market visibility than Native artists enjoyed a few years ago. “Every couple years, the canon opens up doors to marginalized people,” Cannupa Hanska Luger, another Greenan artist, told me. “Right now, it’s Native art.”