RUSSELL P. HARTMAN
Senior Collection Manager
(415) 379-5385
rhartman@calacademy.org

My research focuses broadly upon the many cultures represented in the Academy's ethnographic research collection. However, my particular interests relate to Native American material cultures, particularly craft arts of the Navajo and more generally, of other southwestern U.S. groups. I am currently compiling additional documentation of the Elkus Collection, numbering some 1700 examples of late 19th and early 20th Century Native American art in all media. The collection was assembled in the years 1923-1965 by Ruth C. and Charles de Young Elkus and bequeathed to the California Academy of Sciences in 1972. The Elkuses were very active in promoting growing markets for native crafts, and were particularly involved with the Indian Arts and Crafts Board and the Gallup Inter-Tribal Indian Ceremonial.

I am also continuing research on Inupiaq Eskimo artist, George Ahgupuk, one of several 20th Century Native Alaskan artists represented in the Elkus Collection. Ahgupuk and several of his peers created a unique body of work on tanned skins and paper that collectively depict a traditional way of life that changed dramatically in the 20th Century.

 

To view Russell Hartman's Curriculum Vitae, click here.