Water, Wind, Breath: Southwest Native Art in the Barnes Foundation, Lucy Fowler Williams

This title opens a rich, deeply visual conversation between place, material and spirit, casting Southwest Native American artefacts not as static museum holdings but as living expressions of identity, memory and landscape. Anchored in the extraordinary Barnes Foundation collection of Pueblo and Navajo pottery, textiles, jewelry and ritual objects assembled in the early 20th century, the book places historic pieces alongside contemporary work by Indigenous artists, illuminating the ongoing dialogues between tradition and innovation. The title itself evokes the elemental forces that animate Southwest life — water as sustenance, wind as movement, breath as presence — and these forces become metaphors for artistic practice, community connection and cultural continuity.

Rather than offering mere description, the volume draws on post-colonial and Indigenous perspectives to uncover how material forms carry meaning: from the geometric complexities of woven textiles to the burnished surfaces of pottery and intricacies of silverwork. Historic pieces amassed by collector Albert C. Barnes in his 1930s expeditions to the U.S. Southwest are juxtaposed with recent artistic responses, revealing how heritage crafts remain active, dynamic languages rather than museum artefacts. Detailed colour photography — laid out generously across the pages — invites slow-seeing, encouraging readers to appreciate not only surface pattern but the cultural resonance embedded in thread, pigment and form.

About the Author
Lucy Fowler Williams is Associate Curator-in-Charge and Jeremy A. Sabloff Senior Keeper of American Collections at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Her expertise in Native American art and anthropology shapes the book’s thoughtful blend of scholarly context, Indigenous voices, and visual interpretation.

Contributors include Antonio Chavarria, TahNibaa Naataanii, Ken Williams, Robert Bauver, and Laurie D. Webster — writers and artists who bring both lived experience and deep engagement with Pueblo and Navajo artistic traditions. Their combined perspectives help the volume transcend the usual exhibition catalogue, making it a textured reflection on continuity, resilience and artistic living tradition.

Publication date: 2022
Publisher: Yale University Press
Pages: 224
Binding: Hardcover
ISBN: 9780300264128