Jean LaMarr
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Jean LaMarr (born 1945) is a
Northern Paiute Northern may refer to the following: Geography * North, a point in direction * Northern Europe, the northern part or region of Europe * Northern Highland, a region of Wisconsin, United States * Northern Province, Sri Lanka * Northern Range, a ...
/
Achomawi Achomawi (also Achumawi, Ajumawi and Ahjumawi) are the northerly nine (out of eleven) bands of the Pit River tribe of Palaihnihan Native Americans who live in what is now northeastern California in the United States. These 5 autonomous bands ( ...
artist and activist from California. She creates murals, prints, dioramas, sculptures, and interactive installations. She is an enrolled citizen of the
Susanville Indian Rancheria The Susanville Indian Rancheria (, ''bush creek country'')Simmons, W. S., Morales, R., Williams, V., & Camacho, S. (1997). Honey Lake Maidu Ethnogeography of Lassen County, California . Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology, 19(1), 2â ...
.


Early life

Born in Susanville,
California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...
, Jean LaMarr was given the name Pahime Gutne (Purple Flower Girl). 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. 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.


Education

LaMarr studied at
San Jose City College San José City College (SJCC) is a public community college in San Jose, California. It was founded in 1921, and is one of the oldest colleges in the California Community College System. History The college was founded in 1921, opening its doo ...
from 1970 to 1973; at the
University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...
, from 1973 to 1976; and at the Kala Art Institute from 1976 to 1986. LaMarr's instructors at UC Berkeley weren't supportive of her representational art. Lamarr was attending school in San Jose during the
Occupation of Alcatraz The Occupation of Alcatraz (November 20, 1969 – June 11, 1971) was a 19-month long occupation of Alcatraz Island and its prison complex, then classified as abandoned surplus federal land, by 89 American Indians and their supporters. The occ ...
and she supported that movement. She then joined a group of artists that protested discrimination. The 1969 Third World strike in Berkeley influence her work, as did the Chicano artists Ester Hernández and Malaquias Montoya.


Career

Between 1973 and 1990 she taught at such institutions as the
College of Marin The College of Marin, (known as Marin Junior College, 1926–1947) is a Public college, public community college in Marin County, California, with two campuses, one in Kentfield, California, Kentfield, and the second in Novato, California, Novat ...
,
San Francisco State University San Francisco State University (San Francisco State, SF State and SFSU) is a Public university, public research university in San Francisco, California, United States. It was established in 1899 as the San Francisco State Normal School and is ...
, the
California College of Arts and Crafts The California College of the Arts (CCA) is a Private university, private art school in San Francisco, California. It was founded in Berkeley, California in 1907 and moved to a historic estate in Oakland, California in 1922. In 1996, it opened ...
,
Lassen Community College Lassen Community College is a public community college in Susanville, California. It is a part of the California Community Colleges System. The college is located in Susanville in the high mountain lake country of northeastern California. The c ...
, California Correctional Center, and the
Institute of American Indian Arts The Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) is a public tribal land-grant college in Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States. The college focuses on Native American art. It operates the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (MoCNA), which is housed ...
. An active muralist, she is also known for her prints. 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." Curator
Jan Rindfleisch Jan Rindfleisch (1942–2025) was an American artist, educator, author, curator, and community builder. Rindfleisch is known for the programming she initiated and oversaw at the Euphrat Museum of Art; for her book on the history of art communities ...
writes of LaMarr: "Jean LaMarr has honored and supported tribal communities for four decades. From drawing Indigenous youth during the 1960s to creating a compelling series of Bear Dance posters years later, her pictorial narrative counters the long-standing erasure of Indigenous presence. She often focused on women, celebrating and documenting their history and survival." LaMarr is the founder of the Native American Graphic Workshop. In 2022, the
California Society of Printmakers The California Society of Printmakers (CSP) is the oldest continuously operating association of printmakers and friends of printmakers in the United States. CSP is a 501(c)(3) non-profit arts organization with an international membership of print ...
recognized LaMarr's contributions to the field of fine art printmaking with a lifetime, honorary membership. In 2022, the
Nevada Museum of Art The Nevada Museum of Art, is an art museum in Reno, Nevada. Located at 160 West Liberty Street in Reno, it is the only American Alliance of Museums (AAM) accredited art museum in the state of Nevada. The museum has chosen a thematic approach, pl ...
launched ''The Art of Jean LaMarr'', a retrospective of more than 60 of her works. This traveled to the
Boise Art Museum The Boise Art Museum (BAM) is located at 670 Julia Davis Drive in Boise, Idaho, and is part of a series of public museums and cultural attractions in Julia Davis Park. It is the permanent home of a growing collection of contemporary realism, mod ...
in Idaho and the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The exhibition included prints, mixed-media works, paintings and sculptures, many dealing with the Native American women and cultural stereotypes. Her work critiques racist representations of Native peoples, especially women, as well as addresses the legacy of colonialism as well as environmental justice issues. Debra Harry, (Kooyooe Tukadu Numu from Pyramid Lake) who is also a professor of Indigenous Studies at the University of Nevada has written of the work in the exhibition: “Jean LaMarr speaks from a place of fierce pride in her indigeneity, and a willingness to challenge the erasure and structural racism that Indigenous Peoples face in their lives. Her work has that razor-sharp political commentary, yet can transmit the softness and beauty of our cultures, particularly of Indigenous women.”


Personal life

LaMarr married DeeRoy "Spence" Spencer (
Navajo The Navajo or Diné are an Indigenous people of the Southwestern United States. Their traditional language is Diné bizaad, a Southern Athabascan language. The states with the largest Diné populations are Arizona (140,263) and New Mexico (1 ...
1945–2015), a
Vietnam War The Vietnam War (1 November 1955 – 30 April 1975) was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and South Vietnam (Republic of Vietnam) and their allies. North Vietnam w ...
veteran and designer. The couple has one son. After Spencer's death in 2015, she unsuccessfully fought the
Navajo Nation The Navajo Nation (), also known as Navajoland, is an Indian reservation of Navajo people in the United States. It occupies portions of northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico, and southeastern Utah. The seat of government is located in ...
in court over where he was to be buried. 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.


Works


Prints

* ''Sacred Places Where We Pray'', photo etching, 1990 * ''500 Years of Resistance: Through Women's Eyes'', screenprint, 1992, printed with René Castro at Mission Gráfica


Murals

* ''Our Ancestors, Our Future'', mural, Lasson Street, Susanville created with Jack Malotte * ''The Ohlone Journey'', mural, Berkeley, California


Selected exhibitions

* 1987: ''The Ethnic Idea'', curated by Andrée Maréchal-Workman, group exhibition, Berkeley Art Center, Berkeley, California * 1995: ''Violetly Volatile: Selected Mixed Media Works from 1974 to 1995'' (1995), solo retrospective at C.N. Gorman Museum, Davis, California * 2019–20: ''When I Remember I See Red: American Indian Art and Activism in California'',
Crocker Art Museum The Crocker Art Museum is the oldest art museum in the Western United States, located in Sacramento, California. Founded in 1885, the museum holds one of the premier collections of Californian art. The collection includes American works dating f ...
, Sacramento, California, curated by
Frank LaPena Frank Raymond LaPena, also known as Frank LaPeña and by his Wintu name Tauhindauli (1937 – 2019), was a Nomtipom-Wintu American Indian painter, printmaker, ethnographer, professor, ceremonial dancer, poet, and writer. He taught at California Sta ...
(Nomtipom Wintu, 1937–2019) * 2022–23 ''The Art of Jean LaMarr'',
Nevada Museum of Art The Nevada Museum of Art, is an art museum in Reno, Nevada. Located at 160 West Liberty Street in Reno, it is the only American Alliance of Museums (AAM) accredited art museum in the state of Nevada. The museum has chosen a thematic approach, pl ...
, Reno;
Boise Art Museum The Boise Art Museum (BAM) is located at 670 Julia Davis Drive in Boise, Idaho, and is part of a series of public museums and cultural attractions in Julia Davis Park. It is the permanent home of a growing collection of contemporary realism, mod ...
, Boise; IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, Santa Fe, NM * ''Princess Pale Moon'' exhibition,
Heard Museum The Heard Museum is a private, not-for-profit museum in Phoenix, Arizona, United States, dedicated to the advancement of American Indian art. It presents the stories of American Indian people from a first-person perspective, as well as exhibitio ...
, Phoenix, Arizona


Further reading

* * ''The Art of Jean La Marr'', Nevada: Nevada Museum of Art, 2020. .


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:LaMarr, Jean 1945 births Living people Native American women artists Native American painters Native American printmakers 20th-century American painters 20th-century American printmakers 20th-century American women artists 21st-century American painters 21st-century American printmakers 21st-century American women artists Northern Paiute people Pit River tribes San Jose City College alumni University of California, Berkeley alumni College of Marin faculty San Francisco State University faculty California College of the Arts faculty People from Susanville, California Painters from California American women printmakers American women academics 20th-century Native American artists 21st-century Native American artists 20th-century Native American women 21st-century Native American women American women activists