Jean LaMarr

Jean LaMarr (born 1945) is a Northern Paiute/Achomawi artist and activist from California. She creates murals, prints, dioramas, sculptures, and interactive installations. She is an enrolled member of the Susanville Indian Rancheria.[2]

Jean LaMarr
Pahime Gutne
Born1945
NationalitySusanville Indian Rancheria, American
EducationSan Jose City College
Alma materUniversity of California, Berkeley[1]
Known forprintmaking, murals

Early life

Born in Susanville, California, Jean LaMarr was given the name Pahime Gutne (Purple Flower Girl).[3] Her family was poor. She created her first mural when she was in fourth grade called "Sir Frances Drake Christianizing the Indians" and the experience was meaningful to her.[3] She experienced racism from her teachers at school and had to hide her art making when at home from her father, who wanted her to pursue a more practical occupation.[3]

Education

LaMarr studied at San Jose City College from 1970 to 1973; at the University of California, Berkeley, from 1973 to 1976; and at the Kala Institute from 1976 to 1986. LaMarr's instructors at UC Berkeley weren't supportive of her representational art.[4] Lamarr was attending school in San Jose during the Occupation of Alcatraz and she supported that movement. She then joined a group of artists that protested discrimination.[3] The 1969 Third World strike in Berkeley influence her work, as did the Chicano artists Ester Hernández and Malaquias Montoya.[1]

Career

Between 1973 and 1990 she taught at such institutions as the College of Marin, San Francisco State University, the California College of Arts and Crafts, Lassen Community College, California Correctional Center, and the Institute of American Indian Arts.[3] An active muralist, she is also known for her prints.[5] She is drawn to the democratic quality of both media and has said, "I believe that art is for everyone. Art shouldn't be just for the museums or the rich, it should be for everyone and in everybody's home. That is why I started doing murals. That is also why I got into printmaking, because it was a way of gathering minds, a way of raising consciousness about what is happening with the Earth, Indian rights, and the Indian woman."[6]

Lamarr is the founder of the Native American Graphic Workshop.[7]

Personal life

LaMarr married DeeRoy "Spence" Spencer, a Navajo veteran of the Vietnam War and designer. The couple has one son.

After Spencer's death in 2015, she has fought the Navajo Nation in court over where he was to be buried.[8] The Navajo Nation ruled that he must be buried in Arizona in the community in which he was born, but LaMarr argued that he wished to be buried in their Susanville community.[9]

Works

Murals
  • "Our Ancestors, Our Future", mural, Lasson Street, Susanville[10][3] created with Jack Malotte
  • "The Ohlone Journey", mural, Berkeley, California[3]

Exhibitions
  • The Art of Jean LaMarr (2021), Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, NV[11]
  • When I Remember I See Red: American Indian Art and Activism in California (2019–20), Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA[12]
  • Violetly Volatile: Selected Mixed Media Works from 1974 to 1995 (1995), solo retrospective at C.N. Gorman Museum, Davis, CA[1]
  • "Princess Pale Moon" exhibition, Heard Museum, Phoenix, AZ[3]
  • "Minniehaha Lifes: Boxes, Postcards, Indian Women"[3]

Further reading
  • Farris, Phoebe (1999). Women artists of color : a bio-critical sourcebook to 20th century artists in the Americas. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press. p. 27. ISBN 0-313-30374-6. OCLC 40193578.

References
  1. Rockwell, Susanne (5 April 1995). "Work of Native American Printmaker Jean LaMarr on Display". UC Davis. Retrieved 10 November 2020.
  2. Rindfleisch, Jan. "Ohlone Art and Building Community". Silicon Valley Art. Retrieved 3 July 2020.
  3. Fulkerson, Mary Lee (2017). Women Artists of the Great Basin. Reno, NV. pp. 67–72. ISBN 978-1943859375.
  4. Fuller, Diana; Salvioni, Daniela (eds.). Art/Women/California. University of California Press.
  5. Jules Heller; Nancy G. Heller (19 December 2013). North American Women Artists of the Twentieth Century: A Biographical Dictionary. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-135-63882-5.
  6. Farley, Ronnie (Summer 1993). "Women of the Native Struggle". Native Peoples. 6 (4): 22.
  7. "Jean LaMarr". Retrieved 9 February 2017.
  8. "Susanville woman battles Navajo Nation over husband's body". Retrieved 9 February 2017.
  9. Magagnini, Stephen (4 February 2015). "Susanville woman battles Navajo Nation over husband's body". The Sacramento Bee.
  10. "Susanville, California, United States, North America". Getty Images. Retrieved 2019-03-27.
  11. "The Art of Jean LaMarr". Nevada Museum of Art. Retrieved 10 November 2020.
  12. O'Brien, Elaine (21 December 2019). "When I Remember I See Red @ Crocker". Square Cylander. Retrieved 10 November 2020.
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