Mississippi Choctaw painter featured at New York museum

Thursday, May 16, 2013  

Jeffrey Gibson, a member of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, is opening a solo show at the National Academy Museum in New York City this month.

Gibson, who is also Cherokee, always maintained a connection to his tribal heritage. After finishing art school, he helped a museum comply with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.

But the 41-year-old painter was reluctant to portray himself as an "Indian" artist. That changed a few years ago, after he showed his works at the American Indian Community House and the National Museum of the American Indian, and after he started to collaborate with other Indian artists.

“If you’d told me five years ago that this was where my work was going to lead, I never would have believed it," Gibson told The New York Times, referring to pieces that utilize hides, drums and tepee poles.

The exhibition, Jeffrey Gibson: Said the Pigeon to the Squirrel, opens May 23 and runs through September 8.

Get the Story:
At Peace With Many Tribes (The New York Times 5/19)