As a 50-year retrospective, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith: Memory Map explores the extensive career of one of the most innovative and significant artists of her generation. At long last, this exhibition — on view at SAM through May 12, 2024 — brings Smith’s invaluable perspective into the spotlight. 

Jaune Quick-to-See was born in 1940 and is a citizen of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Nation. Her work as an artist, activist, curator, and educator is threaded throughout everything she touches, including her distinctive artworks that utilize abstraction, expressionism, and pop art to explore timely topics like land, social justice, preservation, and sustainability. As a mentor, she now leads the next generation of Native American artists wanting to assert their voices in contemporary art, while continuing to confront America's colonialist history that still reverberates today.

In viewing 130 of Smith’s works, visitors follow her beautiful, winding journey as an artist while better understanding her presence as a strong Native woman, unafraid of surfacing challenging issues near to her heart. Here are five memorable artworks that introduce different aspects of her career and life:

Indian Madonna Enthroned, 1974. This early sculpture, presented in the first gallery on a central circular platform, can be examined from all angles. Visitors will notice many details connecting the figure to nature — corn near Madonna’s heart, pheasant wings in lieu of hands, and a book by the Standing Rock Sioux writer Vine Deloria (which contrasts Christianity to Native religions that are anchored in the interconnectedness of all living things). Yet Smith has carefully added other aspects that show the figure being constrained by colonial forces; both her face and child appear inside literal frames, and stenciled words read “Property of the BIA” (or Bureau of Indian Affairs). Smith’s son, artist Neal Ambrose-Smith, who she often collaborates with, restored parts of this sculpture and has spoken about the symbolic complexities for Native Americans of the flag laying across the figure’s lap.

Indian Map (1992). One of Smith’s many “map” works that revives the deep memory of the land, showing the messy overlap of history and the necessity to hold onto all past stories, this one could be considered the thesis statement of the series. It appears in a gallery with several other map works, including a map of the West Seattle Cultural Trail, a public art project that Smith created with several collaborators in the mid-1990s whose stops SAM “recreates” throughout the exhibition—a special addition solely for SAM audiences. Smith spent many of her earlier years in the Pacific Northwest, receiving her Associate of Arts Degree in 1960 from Bremerton’s Olympic Junior College (now Olympic College) and studying at the University of Washington, too.

Memories of Childhood #5, 1994. This series of 10 drawings, originally intended to be published in a children’s book, creates somewhat of a memoir devoted to Smith’s early life. Presented in a separated-off area with seats in which guests can pause with each piece, this fifth creation of the series showcases the artist’s home in the Nisqually Indian Community, and her family’s tiny cabin beneath towering grandfather trees. To honor her local ties, Smith was intentional in wanting her show to come to Seattle, and made special requests like having a SAM-exclusive work on view from her Chief Seattle series. (She created these works between 1989 to 1991 in reference to a March 1854 speech given by the Squamish and Duwamish leader.)

McFlag, 1996. This work is merely one example of the Abstract Expressionist influences and capitalism critiques that appear throughout Smith’s works. Here, the canvas has speakers that resemble Mickey Mouse’s “ears” and a cord for a “tail,” and layered brand identities (like McDonald’s and Disney) placed atop the American flag suggest the inseparability between American commercialism and American nationalism. Marie Watt, an artist and member of the Seneca Nation of Indians, deems this piece both playful and funny — something commonly noticed in Smith’s multi-layered repertoire. Watt adds, “And yet, it also sort of looks at this darker side of empires.”

Tonto and the Lone Ranger Series: One Day, I Will Be Discovered, 2002. As a master of spanning across decades and genres, Smith often engages with pop art and uses satire and humor to make strong statements. In this work, the artist (perhaps ironically) has referenced Tonto as a self-portrait of sorts. Throughout this retrospective, museum goers will witness how her inclusion of modern-day cultural signifiers has solidified her importance in the contemporary art world.