Tony Abeyta’s “Celebration from the Underworld” (1998-1999; oil on canvas) is one of more than 100 gifted works by Indigenous artists that will be included in “The Way We Came: A Century of Indigenous Art” at Phoenix Art Museum in August (photo by Davin Lavikka).
In June, Phoenix Art Museum announced the addition of 185 works by Indigenous artists to its collection. The gift from The William P. Healey Collection of Native American Art marks the single largest gift of Native art to the Museum in its more than 65-year history and strengthens the Museum’s Art of the Americas Collection by providing a major infusion of modern and contemporary works by 99 artists representing 44 tribal nations.
The museum says that the acquisition furthers its efforts to expand its Art of the Americas holdings and better represent the complex and layered histories of the Americas in its galleries. Drawing from this significant gift, the museum will premiere “The Way We Came: A Century of Indigenous Art” (The William P. Healey Collection at Phoenix Art Museum), an examination of modernity in Native American art and the numerous ways Indigenous artists from the 20th century through today have sustained, adapted and reimagined cultural knowledge.
PhxArt’s Art of the Americas Collection spans the 16th century to the present, with strengths in historical art of the American West, pre-modern American art and Viceregal Latin American Art. The addition of the Healey Collection will bring paintings, drawings, photographs and sculptures that explore a wide range of cultural traditions and stories and demonstrate myriad forms of artistic expression.
Curated by Tony Abeyta (Navajo) and JoAnna Reyes, the museum’s adjunct curator of art of the Americas, and featuring more than 100 of the gifted works, “The Way We Came” will be on view from Aug. 26 through July 11, 2027. Learn more at www.phxart.org.
