Art of Native America: The Charles and Valerie Diker CollectionSpecial EventIn-Person
Tuesday, Mar 28, 2023
4:30 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10028
In partnership with the Metropolitan Museum of Art and with Charles & Valerie Diker
Join the curator and the collector for an intimate tour of this fascinating exhibit of historical and contemporary works by Native American artists. Honoring the diversity of Native life, the collection reveals complex perspectives on America’s past and the deep significance of these artworks to Native and non-Native communities in the present. The work of more than fifty Indigenous groups is represented, as well as major Native American aesthetic forms: painting, drawing, sculpture, textiles, quill and bead embroidery, basketry, and ceramics. The exhibit marks the first time that Native American art has been featured in the museum's American Wing, a department previously devoted to euro-American colonial art.
Patricia Marroquin Norby & Valerie Diker
Patricia Marroquin Norby is Associate Curator of Native American Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She holds a PhD in American Studies from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, with a specialization in Native American art history and visual culture, as well as an MFA in printmaking and photography from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is the author of Water, Bones, and Bombs, which addresses art-making and environmental issues in New Mexico’s Rio Grande Valley. Dr. Norby also brings extensive teaching experience to The Met, including a position as Assistant Professor of American Indian Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, where she taught historical and contemporary Native American art history and culture at graduate and undergraduate levels.
Valerie Diker and her husband Charles have been serious collectors of Native American art for decades. Their collection is widely regarded as one of the most important remaining in private hands. Ninety-one of their pieces, gifted to the museum, anchor this exhibit and reflect the Dikers' understanding that the work of Indigenous Americans is intrinsic to the overall American experience.