This complimentary pair of drawings depicts horses galloping across the background-facing opposite directions on each drawing, with four women with their backs to the viewer watching the horses. Each woman wears elaborate regalia and carries fans and pouches, the type of decorations used to decorate and honor horses. The details on each of their clothing depict warriors and horses in battle .To paraphrase the artist: The purpose of the drawings, "Horse Nation," is to honor 'tasunka wakan,' the horse, for its importance for the Lakota, Nakota and Dakota Oyate, the People. The horse allowed them to increase their mobility for travel and hunting, expand their territory, advance their 'akicita' (warrior societies that protect them), improve their economy, relieve their burdens and,as Linda indicates "most importantly gave women someone else to love." Linda Haukaas recreates 19th century style ledger art within a modern context with themes that particularly highlight women's roles in Plains society and with ceremonial and daily scenes that resonate today. She researches Museum collections and her own history to authenticate the historical references. Since in the past such representative drawings would have been done solely by the male artist she has broken new boundaries as a female ledger artist.

These three objects tell a story of Mexico’s early nineteenth-century Creole patriotism. The Mexican independence movement was fueled by Creoles, who were often denied a voice in colonial government. The 1821 Act of Independence formalized the independence that had been declared in 1810 and was signed by many Creole aristocrats, among them Don José María Gómez de Cervantes, whose portrait is on view nearby. New World figures like the Virgin of Guadalupe, who miraculously appeared to the Indian Juan Diego in 1521, and Saint Felipe de Jesús, the first Mexican-born saint, became important nationalist symbols, supporting the idea that the independence of Mexico was divinely ordained.


Estos tres objetos cuentan la historia del patriotismo criollo en el México de inicios del siglo XIX. El movimiento de independencia mexicano fue promovido por criollos, a quienes con frecuencia se les negó voz en el gobierno colonial. El Acta de la Independencia de 1821 formalizó la independencia que había sido declarada en 1810 y fue firmada por muchos aristócratas criollos, entre ellos don José María Gómez de Cervantes, cuyo retrato se exhibe aquí cerca. Las imágenes sagradas del Nuevo Mundo como la Virgen de Guadalupe, la que milagrosamente se le apareció al indio Juan Diego en 1521, y San Felipe de Jesús, el primer santo nacido en México, llegaron a ser importantes símbolos nacionalistas que apoyaron la idea de que la independencia de México era un designio divino.

A. Augustus Healy Fund