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See Ya' Later, Doll!

Our traveling show Contemporary Folk Art: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum closes at the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens in Jacksonville, Florida, tomorrow.

This exhibition features seventy paintings and sculptures made by self-taught artists during the past forty years—including these Navajo Figures.

Johnson Antonio was more than fifty when he began carving likenesses of Navajo people and their animals. He calls these figures "dolls," but unlike the ceremonial Kachina carvings of the Hopi, these figures represent people from his own experience and reaffirm Navajo life in northern New Mexico. The ear of Indian corn held by the smallest female figure, the Navajo blanket draped over the arm of another, and the pairing of the central male figure with a dog are recurring motifs in Antonio's art. Antonio appreciates the money he earns for his work, but says, "I make them for myself.… The cash will soon be gone, but the dolls will live forever."

Source: Lynda Hartigan. Contemporary Folk Art: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum (exhibition text, Smithsonian American Art Museum, 1999).

Pictured: Johnson Antonio, born 1931, Seven Navajo Figures, 1985–92, acrylic and watercolor on cottonwood with yarn and cloth, various sizes, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Chuck and Jan Rosenak and Museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment.