Dan Namingha: A Painterly Approach to Native American Symbolism features thirty-one works of art created by Dan Namingha between 1972 and 2009. This exhibition demonstrates Namingha's love for the Southwest landscape and his admiration of Hopi-Tewa culture, as well as his dual interest in representation and abstraction. As a master colorist, he creates multilayered paintings that provide rich pictorial elements for the viewer to ponder, absorb, decode, and understand.

Namingha, a member of the Tewa-Hopi Tribe, was born in 1950 on the Hopi reservation in northeastern Arizona. For centuries, his Tewa ancestors and other Native Americans had carved into rock, and drawn on pottery, symbols that conveyed meaning through their resemblance to physical objects, such as the sun, rain, birds, and corn. By interpreting and incorporating these symbols in his work, Namingha continues a time-honored tradition in a fresh, contemporary way.

A summer scholarship to the University of Kansas in Lawrence when he was in high school provided Namingha's first professional training. Thereafter, he studied art at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and commercial illustration at the American Academy of Art in Chicago. His visits to the Art Institute of Chicago--where he viewed western masterworks and contemporary art unlike anything he had seen before--had a profound influence on his direction as an artist.

Namingha's journey eventually took him to Japan, where he was stationed with the U.S. Marine Corps. He observed that the Japanese, like Native Americans, incorporated art into their everyday lives. This discovery inspired him to create art that encompasses both the rich symbolism of Native American iconography and the contemporary styles of abstraction and minimalism. Namingha's groundbreaking style caught the attention of the art world in the early 1970s, which soon led to national and international museum exhibitions, firmly establishing him as an important young artist.

Today, Namingha continues to create his art in a studio connected to his home outside Santa Fe, New Mexico, on twelve acres of former Tewa land. He often rises before dawn and paints until long after sunset. Even with his rigorous schedule, he never tires of his work and continues to challenge himself by alternating between representation, abstraction, and minimalism. Through all of these different styles, his art opens a dialogue and teaches viewers about the powerful origins of the Tewa-Hopi people and their earth-revering culture, symbols, and ceremonies.

Dan Namingha: A Painterly Approach to Native American Symbolism is open to the public Monday through Friday from 10:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., except federal holidays. Reservations are required 24 hours in advance. For reservations and further information, please call (202) 452-3778 or fax (202) 736-5680.