The Seven Best Booths at TEFAF New York 2022

Tessa Solomon of ARTnews lists Donald Ellis Gallery’s presentation of historical Native American art as one of the seven best booths at TEFAF New York Spring 2022.

The gallery exhibits a ‘wide-ranging selection of masks, carvings, and sketches.’ The presentation is centered by a woven basket by Louisa Keyser, also known as Dat So La Lee (1850–1925). Epitomizing her unrivaled artistic innovation in the technique and form of Washoe basketry, the work is one of only three baskets of this significance sold in the last half-century. Also noteworthy are a series of drawings attributed to warrior artist Cedar Tree. Dating from around 1880, they ‘offer insight into Southern Arapaho culture in the Central Plains of the United States during a traumatic era of contact with colonizers.’ The Ledger Drawings are shown alongside a number of crayon and graphite drawings created by a group of Cheyenne warriors during their imprisonment at Fort Marion, in St. Augustine, Florida between 1875 and 1878.