Jaune Quick-to-See-Smith sculpture coming to Missoula Art Museum Art Park
The Missoula Art Museum joins the art world in mourning the loss of Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, a citizen of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Nation and a groundbreaking artist, curator, activist and great friend to MAM. Smith passed away on January 24, 2025, after a battle with pancreatic cancer. A visionary force in contemporary art and Indigenous representation, her impact was immeasurable.
Smith’s contributions to MAM are profound and lasting. Her 1983 exhibition Flathead Wellspring and her curatorial work on Photographing Ourselves: Native American Photography (1987) helped shape MAM’s understanding of contemporary Native art. Her 1998 survey exhibition Subversions / Affirmations deepened this relationship and led to a collaboration to build MAM’s collection of contemporary Native artists. Smith helped start the collection with gifts from her personal collection, ultimately donating of 45 works—31 of her own and 14 by other Indigenous artists. This demonstrates her extraordinary generosity and how tirelessly she championed Indigenous artists throughout her career.
MAM’s Contemporary American Indian Art Collection (CAIAC) now encompasses works by 250 Native artists and holds the largest collection of Smith’s works on paper.
In 2023, she became the first female Native artist to have a retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art with Memory Map, which included four of Smith’s artworks from MAM’s collection. The exhibition toured Fort Worth, Texas and Seattle, WA.
During the past two decades MAM has been in dialogue with Smith about the creation of a sculpture for MAM’s Art Park and this project has recently come to fruition. MAM is proud to announce that Smith’s monumental sculpture, Es wičms č ̓ es mlk̓ʷmulexʷ t snč ̓ l̓ep – Coyote is Seeing All of the Land, is presently in fabrication and will be installed later this summer. Fabricated by local specialty art handling company, Wolf Magritte, this powerful artwork reflects Smith’s lifelong mission to amplify Indigenous voices and confront historical injustices. Set against the colonial façade of the old Carnegie building, the sculpture will stand as a strong declaration of ongoing Séliš presence.
MAM is honored to see this visionary project come to life and to carry her work forward with her blessing.
For MAM’s 50th Anniversary, we are honored to present an exhibition from the MAM Collection of contemporary Native artists. This exhibition highlights the close friendship and parallel legacies of MAM director Laura Millin and Jaune Quick-to-See Smith in establishing what has become a defining feature of the museum. From February through June 2025, this exhibition offers a unique opportunity for the community to experience and reflect on Smith’s profound impact.
As we grieve this immense loss, we remain steadfast in our commitment to supporting contemporary Native artists and upholding the values Jaune Quick-to-See Smith championed throughout her life. We extend our deepest condolences to her family, friends, and the countless artists and communities she inspired.
