GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Many selections from a little known collection of 19th and early 20th century American Indian art will be on exhibit for the public for the first time in 40 years at the Florida Museum of Natural History. Beginning March 22, “The Pearsall Collection of American Indian Art: 40th Anniversary” will honor collector Leigh Morgan Pearsall, as well as the University of Florida’s acquisition of the collection in 1963.

The collection consists of more than 3,000 objects, including 400 baskets, nearly 600 argillite carvings, 19 totem poles and many other important and unique objects. Over 200 of the finest examples of the collection will be displayed, including a rare Subarctic Chipewyan shoulder bag from 1820-1830, made of hide and adorned with porcupine quill designs, as well as an equally rare Chilkat robe from the Northwest Coast.

Pearsall, who retired to Melrose, Fla., in the 1950s, spent his life collecting art from nearly every Native American cultural group in North America. He also bought other entire collections, leading him to become the owner of one of the largest private American Indian art collections in the nation during the early 1900s.

Pearsall’s collecting passion also brought him into competition with George Gustav Heye whose collection is the foundation of the new National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, said Sandra Starr, guest curator.

According to Starr, the creation of 18th and 19th century American Indian art was impacted by materials and designs that were introduced by Europeans.

The art made by Native peoples after contact became a beautiful synthesis between old approaches to things they wore and used, merged with new materials from Europe, such as glass beads, ribbons, silk thread and colored yarn.

Starr said this exhibit also emphasizes the fact that American Indians are still creating this same fine quality of art today.

The selections made from this collection honor not just the creativity and purpose of the makers, but an aura that transports us to a period in American Indian history when Native artists continued to create beautiful things while surviving lives of chaos, displacement and poverty, Starr added.

The exhibit space will be divided into the areas of Eastern Woodlands, Great Plains and Plateau, Northwest Coast and Far North, Far West and Desert West and will display such items as Southeastern Middle Mississippian era pipes and pottery, Northern Woodlands floral beadwork and quillwork, Plains beadwork and pipes, Plateau and Northwest Coast basketry, Argillite carvings from the Northwest Coast, Southwestern pottery, jewelry, basketry and rugs and much more.

Archival photography and memorabilia about Pearsall also will appear throughout the exhibit, setting the collection in its historical context.

In order for this collection to be something that Native people would find acceptable both in text and display, Starr said, the exhibit concepts have been reviewed by a representative from the National Museum of the American Indian, the Deputy Director for Cultural Resources, Gerald McMaster, who is a Plains Cree.

McMaster will attend the opening of the exhibit, March 22 and speak at 2 p.m. about the importance of Native voice in exhibiting American Indian art.

Starr will speak at 1 p.m. about Pearsall’s life and how he came to own such a large collection of Native

American art.

The Florida Museum of Natural History is Florida’s state natural history museum.

For more information,

call (352) 846-2000

or visit ww.flmnh.ufl.edu.