CAMBRIDGE, MA.- The Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology and Tozzer Library present a new exhibition, Native Life in the Americas: Artists' Views. The exhibition opens today, May 4, 2011, in Tozzer Library and will remain on view through February 28, 2012.

Native Life in the Americas: Artists' Views showcases the work of important though not well-known artists who focused on Native American life and culture.

This exhibition displays selected prints and books from the Tozzer Library collection, looking beyond the familiar 19th-century white male painters to include women artists, Native artists, and even one living artist. The exhibition also includes artists who were primarily illustrators, designers, and printmakers rather than painters.

The geographic focus of the exhibition is North America, though Mexico, Central America, and the Andes are also represented. The time periods in which these artists worked range from the mid-1930s through the first decade of the 21st century. Some, both Native and white, had been encouraged and supported by the Works Project Administration and similar programs during the Depression, while others’ artistic output supported them comfortably. Some were scholars as well as artists. Many worked in multiple media. Some were most productive in their adopted communities while others spent their lives comfortably close to home with their art reflecting that intimacy.