Where the Two Came to Their Father
- May 25, 2023 - August 18, 2023
Upper Gallery -
On Site Exhibition
Where the Two Came to Their Father will exhibit the eighteen silkscreen prints from a portfolio preserving art from a Navajo war ceremony.
The ritual was traditionally used to protect the souls of warriors when they were far from their people, and Navajo Nation leaders revived it for their men drafted into the United States military for the second world war. In the early 1940s, medicine man Jeff King permitted ethnologist Maud Oakes to sit in as he conducted the war ceremony. Where the Two Came to Their Father: Navajo War Ceremonial is her reproduction of the sand paintings King created in the ceremony.
The portfolio was a gift of Anne d’Harnoncourt and Joseph Rishel to the Berman Museum of Art’s permanent collection in 2022.
