Indigenous Arts of the Americas

Long before European contact, the peoples of Mesoamerica and the Andes built cities, calendars and an art of great ambition: Olmec jade, Maya courtly carving and painted vessels, fierce Aztec stone deities, Moche portrait vessels, Nasca polychrome pottery and Andean gold worked as a sign of divine power. Across North America, Native nations carried these traditions of making into the modern era, in Pueblo pottery, Northwest Coast carving, quillwork, beadwork and painted hides. Much of this art served ritual, rulership and the bond between people, ancestors and land.