Virtual Art Tour

Dan Namingha, Native American, Tewa-Hopi, born 1950)

Emerging Kachinas

Dan Namingha was raised in the Tewa-Hopi Village of Polacca. He is an internationally known contemporary artist whose work is in significant public and private collections throughout the world. He was selected by the Smithsonian Institution in 1996 to create a commemorative lithograph to celebrate their 150th anniversary. Namingha was also a recipient of the Governor's Award for Excellence and Achievement in the Arts for 1994 along with being chosen as the Distinguished Artist the Year by the Rotary Foundation of Santa Fe in 1994. The Fogg Art Museum in Cambridge, Mass. exhibited his works in 1994 and presented him with a tribute for his outstanding contribution to American art, Native American culture and intercultural relations. Zimbabwe honored him in 1993 as the only American to be invited to judge African sculpture and New Zealand chose him as the artist in residence to work with contemporary Maori Artists. Namingha has been showing professionally as an artist for 28 years.

His works command unwavering respect for the earth and spirit of his ancestry, and the beautiful heritage that is the heart of his creativity. He is constantly drawn to his roots, yet allows us only a guarded glimpse of his sacred traditions - the spirit messengers, the Kachinas representing blessings, ancestors, goodness and cloud people - all forming the interim of visage between the physical and the spirit world. Namingha paints and sculpts the imagery of his homeland and his people, always with the integrity instilled in him by that depth of belief and love of spirit.

Drawing and painting was a natural part of his Tewa-Hopi childhood. It gave him a way to express his strong feelings about the culture and environment leading to a path of creative freedom. Namingha feels that change and evolution are a continuum, socially, politically and spiritually, and that the future of our planet and membership of the human race must be monitored to ensure survival in the spirit of cultural and technological diversity. He says that only then can we merge the positive and negative polarization and balance so necessary to the communal spirit of the universe.

His latest museum exhibitions were at the Montclair Art Museum in Montclair, N.J., the Wheelwright Museum in Santa Fe and the Fine Arts Museum in Santa Fe. In 1998, Namingha was commissioned by the State Capitol Art Foundation of New Mexico to create an eight-foot bronze sculpture for their permanent collection, which will be installed in 1999.

His education includes, The Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe; the University of Kansas; and the American Academy of Art in Chicago. Namingha'S symbolism and imagery includes abstract landscapes and fragmented Tewa-Hopi symbolism.