CORNING, NY – The Rockwell Museum of Western Art is proud to present By Native Hands: Native American Baskets from the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art, scheduled to open August 30 and run through November 11, 2007. Humans have been making baskets for thousands of years; it is a craft that is common to all cultures. Today's native basket makers work within a tradition that is centuries old.

The Lauren Rogers Museum of Art in Laurel, Mississippi, features an internationally known collection of approximately five hundred Native American baskets. Gathered at the turn of the century by Laurel resident Catherine Marshall Gardiner, this collection has been described as "...an astounding collection of Native American basketry" by Ann Drumheller of the National Museum of the American Indian. She went on: "I believe that no other institution in the Southeast comes close to having such a significant sampling of Native American basketry.... I cannot say enough as to the importance and future significance this collection can have...."

There are Choctaw weavers in Mississippi, the home of the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art, who are fifth-generation basket weavers, learning a tradition passed down from mother to daughter over the decades. Although Native basketry traditions suffered in the dislocations and epidemics of the18th and 19th centuries, many tribes are reviving the old techniques and encouraging the development of weaving skills in the community. Most basketry traditions are closely tied to the land: baskets are made of locally available fibers and dyed with local plants. Tribal styles and techniques, though grounded in tradition, are open to interpretation by individual weavers.

The exhibition features sixty-five baskets from this fine collection, many of which have never been loaned before. Most of the baskets were produced between 1850 and 1910, by artisans representing more than forty North American tribes from across the continent. Basketry is an infinitely variable medium; baskets can be simple, unadorned utilitarian objects, or objects of great complexity, made to be beautiful but not used. Yet even the most practical basket, well made, can be a thing of beauty wherein form follows function, centuries of tradition influence the weaver and the materials reflect the land in which the artist is grounded. This collection features baskets of all types: from the small burden baskets of the Klikitat in the Pacific Northwest to the ornate feathered basketry of the Pomo in the Southwest, large hand-painted splint storage baskets from the Northeast, and the elaborate double-weave of richly dyed Choctaw in the Southeast.

 The showing here in Corning, NY is part of a ten city national tour over a two and a half year period containing Approximately sixty four Native American Baskets, drawn from the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art. The tour was developed and managed by Smith Kramer Fine Art Services, an exhibition tour development company in Kansas City, Missouri.

About the Rockwell Museum of Western Art

Accredited by the American Association of Museums, the Rockwell Museum of Western Art is located in the center of the Finger Lakes Wine Country of New York Sate and in the heart of Corning’s Gaffer District. The Museum is open to the public seven days a week; hours are 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. The Museum is open 9 a.m. - 8 p.m. through Labor Day. Membership to the Museum includes yearlong free admission. For more information, please visit us online at www.rockwellmuseum.org.