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Past Exhibitions


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George de Forest Brush: The Indian Paintings

Feb 26 – May 25 2009

Seattle Art Museum

Paintings by George de Forest Brush have been recently rediscovered, providing the inspiration for an exhibition of 21 works of art by this gifted but little-known 19th-century American artist.

The subjects of these paintings are Indians—ancient native North Americans and Meso-Americans. Brush began painting Indians out of his experience living with the Crow, Shoshone and Arapahoe in the West from 1881 to 1882. His paintings are exquisite miniaturist views of other worlds inhabited by ancient storytellers, carvers, weavers, painters and hunters. The artist’s treatment of the subject is unique in American art from this period, when American Indians were typically treated in art as hostile peoples, aggressors against white settlers in the American West. These paintings, on loan from private and museum collections, have never been shown together before.

–Patricia Junker, Ann M. Barwick Curator of American Art

Educational Resources
To explore this exhibition a little deeper, attend some of the related programs and events for kids, teens and adults or download our bibliography. Launch the National Gallery of Art’s interactive.


Seattle Art Museum respectfully acknowledges that we are on Indigenous land, the traditional territories of the Coast Salish people. We honor our ongoing connection to these communities past, present, and future.

Learn more about Equity at SAM