Louisa Keyser Praised in the New York Times

A two-page spread in the New York Times discusses Louisa Keyser’s outstanding art while highlighting the complex artist-patron relationship that enabled it. Weaving exclusively for Abe and Amy Cohn, owners of the Emporium store in Carson City, Nevada, Keyser was able to push the techniques, forms, and surface designs and Native American basketry to new heights, creating visually driven baskets that display a distinctly modernist sensibility for a global art market. “Keyser’s baskets were arguably made possible not only by her talent and efforts but by the support of white patrons, a sensational legend and a contemporary “basket craze” that placed a premium on the exoticism and authenticity of Native crafts,” Marc Tracy writes. “It is notable, in an era vexed by questions of cultural appropriation,” Marc Tracy writes, “that Donald Ellis Gallery is not shying from this kink in the story of Keyser and her baskets.”

Five of Louisa Keyser's baskets are on view at the Independent 20th Century, Battery Maritime Building, New York, September 8-10, 2023.