#mary sully

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Mary Sully, born Susan Mabel Deloria, at All Saints School circa 1912

Mary Sully (1896–1963) was a Yankton Dakota avant-garde artist. Her work remained largely unknown until the early 21st century. Sully is best known for her colored-pencil triptychs and "personality prints," which often depicted celebrities such as Amelia Earhart, Gertrude Stein, and Greta Garbo. Her panels, characterized by abstract forms, symbols, rich colors, and symmetry, often appear kaleidoscopic in nature. Via Wikipedia

Born: Susan Mabel Deloria May 2, 1896 Standing Rock Indian Reservation, South Dakota

Died: August 29, 1963 (aged 67) Omaha, Nebraska

Nationality: Standing Rock Sioux Tribe (American)

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The Architect (Ralph Adams Cram, 1863–1942), Mary Sully (Dakota, 1896–19630, ca. 1920s–40s, colored pencil, pastel crayon, ink, and graphite on paper, 34 3/8 × 19 in. (87.3 × 48.3 cm), Courtesy of the Mary Sully Foundation

Mary Sully, born Susan Deloria on the Standing Rock Reservation in South Dakota, was a little-known, reclusive Yankton Dakota artist who, between the 1920s and the 1940s, created groundbreaking works informed by her Native American and settler ancestry. Working without patronage, in near obscurity, and largely self-taught, Sully produced some two hundred intricately designed and vividly colored drawings that complicate traditional notions of Native American and modern art. They mix meaningful aspects of her Dakota heritage with visual elements observed from other Native nations and the aesthetics of urban life. Euro-American celebrities from popular culture, politics, and religion inspired some of her most striking works, which she called “personality prints”—abstract portraits arranged as vertical triptychs. Together, Sully’s works offer a fresh, complex lens through which to consider American art and life in the early twentieth century.

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Mary Sully: Native Modern - The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Exhibition now on view at The Met

Mary Sully 1920s–40s, Colored pencil, wax crayon, ink, and graphite on paper

Mary Sully—born Susan Mabel Deloria on the Standing Rock Reservation in South Dakota—was a little-known, reclusive Yankton Dakota artist who, between the 1920s and 1940s, created highly distinctive work informed by her Native American and settler ancestry. Working without patronage, in near obscurity, and largely self-taught, Sully produced intricately designed and vividly colored drawings.

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Mary Sully: Native Modern

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Mary Sully’s Astonishing Art Pictures American History Through Indigenous Eyes

A new exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum reveals how deeply embedded a Native woman’s perspective on our culture might be.

Elizabeth Pochoda's review of an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum, Mary Sully: Native Modern, is quite wonderful. The online version has many interesting links to pursue.

If you're like me you may be stymied by paywalls. Bur Mary Sully's art is so engaging you may want to discover more.

A couple of years ago I linked to a presentation by historian Philip Deloria which imagines an alternative history following a provision in th 1778 Treaty of Fort Pitt. In that post I pointed to another talk by Deloria about his grandaunt Mary Sully's art. I botched the link, but I think I 've corrected it now. In any case I'll link to two presentations by Philip Deloria as well as the book he's written about the work.

I'm not at all sure I understand Indigenous People's Day as white as I am. But for me the fact that "we're still here" is very important. Most of Mary Sully's artworks in the exhibition were made in the 1930s. The compositions provide a sense of indigenous history into the present far more complicated and nuanced than a before and after story.

Here are the Youtube links:

Storytelling in an American Indian Family: A Presentation by Philip Deloria : https://youtu.be/NheInp1hbuE

Davis Museum Webinar - Philip J. DeLoria: “Becoming Mary Sully”: https://youtu.be/qwmSmiZ9FEU

Philip Deloria's book:

Becoming Mary Sully: Toward an American Indian Abstract

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mary sully