Native American Art In The Denver Art Museum

by Richard Conn The Denver Art Museum 100 color and 400 black-and-white photographs, 351 pages, $40.00 hardbound, $20.00 paperback

Indian art was utilitarian, but it was certainly not primitive. This selection of 500 objects from the Denver Art Museum’s vast holdings of native art, arranged by region and generously captioned, shows how various and ingenious the artists were. No object was too ordinary to decorate. A baby’s cradleboard is intricately carved at the top. A spoon has a fox-head handle. Even a horsewhip has a beautifully beaded wrist strap. This is a feast of a book—riches for the mind, splendor for the eye.