Arni Brownstone
Assistant Curator (Plains Indian Culture)
Area: World Cultures, Canada
Exhibitions & Galleries: Daphne Cockwell Gallery of Canada: First Peoples, Shreyas and Mina Ajmera Gallery of Africa, The Americas, and Asia-Pacific
Bio
BFA (Honours), Visual Arts, York University, 1974
Arni Brownstone is the curator responsible for the ethnographic collections from the Americas. His responsibilities include the development of exhibitions and galleries drawing on material from those areas. His scholarly focus is on the visual culture of the northern Plains Indians, with a special interest in Plains Indian pictographic painting. He is currently working toward a survey book based on his re-drawings of over fifty large-scale pictographic paintings, some of which are detailed below.
Photos
Recent Publications
| Year | Publication |
|---|---|
| 2015 (TBD) | "Painting and Engraving East of the Rockies." Handbook Of North American Indians: Technology and Visual Arts, Smithsonian Institution |
| 2015 | War Paintings of the Tsuu T'ina First Nation, Lincoln and Edmonton: University of Nebraska Press and University of Alberta Press |
| 2015 | The Lienzo of Tlapiltepec, Norman and Toronto: University of Oklahoma Press and ROM Press |
| 2014 | P. Hovens and B. Bernstein, eds. "Two Pipe Bags and a Beaded Jacket." North American Indian Art: Masterpieces and Museum Collections from The Netherlands, Leiden and Altenstadt: National Museum of Ethnology and ZKF Publishers (PDF) |
| 2014 | J. Macfarlane, ed. "Blackfoot Robe." Every Object has a Story: Extraordinary Canadians Celebrate the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto: Royal Ontario Museum, 24-30. (PDF) |
| 2014 | "European Influence in the Mandan-Hidatsa Graphic Works Collected by Prince Maximilian of Wied." American Indian Art Magazine, 39(3), 58-70. (PDF) |
| 2012 | "Fancy Footwork." ROM Magazine of the Royal Ontario Museum , 45 (3), Winter, 48. (PDF) |
| 2011 | M.-H. Pottier, ed. Figeac. "Un Parallélisme : La pictographie indienne et la tradition orale." Mémoires indiennes , France: Musée Champollion |
| 2011 | "Secret Passages, ROM high-tech X-ray clears the smoke in this "puzzle pipe" mystery." ROM Magazine of the Royal Ontario Museum , 44 (3), Winter (PDF) |
| 2011 | "Mysteries of the Sculptural Narrative Pipes from Manitoulin Island." American Indian Art Magazine, 36 (3), 54-63 & 84-85. (PDF) |
| 2010 | "Composition and Inconography in Painted Plains Indian Shirts." Generous Man/Ahxsi-tapina: Essays in Memory of Colin Taylor, Wyk, Germany: Tatanka Press (PDF) |
| 2010 | "Book Review of Material Histories: Proceedings of a workshop held at the Marischal Museum." Museum Anthropology Review , University of Aberdeen, April 2007, 26-27. (PDF) |
| 2008 | "Reverend John Mclean and the Bloods." American Indian Art Magazine, 33 (3), 44-57. (PDF) |
| 2007 | "War Paint: Tipi liner tells the tale of one Blackfoot warrior's exploits." ROM Magazine, 40 (3), 21-22. (PDF) |
| 2007 | "Bull Head's Revenge." Open Letter, A Canadian Journal of Writing and Theory, 13 (1), 136-145. (PDF) |
| 2007 | "Big Nose and His Painted Elk Skin." Plains Anthropologist, 52 (202), 195-207. (PDF) |
| 2005 | "Treasures from the Bloods." Rotunda, 37 (3), 22-31. (PDF) |
| 2005 | "The 'Many Shots' Robe." Oxford: Pitt Rivers Museum, 1-10. (PDF) |
| 2005 | "Spirit of the Plains." Rotunda, 37 (3), 14-21. (PDF) |
| 2005 | "Bear Chief's War Deed Tipi." The People of the Buffalo, Volume 2, The Plains Indians of North America, The Silent Memorials: Artifacts as Cultural and Historical Documents, Essays in Honor of John C. Ewers, 2, 43-55. (PDF) |
| 2004 | "Animal Arrays and Geometric Pictorials: Commercial Aspects of Plains Painting." European Review of Native American Studies, 18 (1), 9-19. (PDF) |
| 2003 | "Rosettes Abloom: Solving a Beadwork Mystery." Rotunda, 36 (1), 5. (PDF) |
| 2002 | "Beyond Bridle Fashion ." Rotunda , 35 (1), 5. (PDF) |
| 2002 | "Ancestors: The Deane-Freeman Collections from the Bloods." American Indian Art Magazine, 27 (3), 38-49, 73-77. (PDF) |
| 2002 | "Anatomy of a Fake." European Review of Native American Studies, 16 (2), 55-56. (PDF) |
| 2001 | "The Musée de l'Homme's Foureau Robe and Its Moment in the History of Blackfoot Painting." Plains Anthropologist, 46 (117), 249-267. (PDF) |
| 2001 | "Seven War-exploit Paintings: A Search for Their Origins." Studies in Native American Art: A Memorial Tribute to Norman Feder, 69-85. (PDF) |
| 2001 | "La Couverture blackfoot de la collection Foureau du Musée de l'Homme." Gradhiva, 29, 62-76. |
| 2000 | "A Whip is Just a Whip." Rotunda, 33 (1), 6. (PDF) |
| 1998 | Colin F. Taylor. "Book Review. "Catlin’s O-Kee-Pa: Mandan Culture and Ceremonial, The George Catlin Manuscript in the British Museum." European Review of Native American Studies, 12 (1), 55-56. (PDF) |
| 1998 | "Stretch to Fit." Rotunda, 31 (1), 48. (PDF) |
| 1998 | "Slippers Fit for a Bride." Rotunda, 31 (1), 5-8. (PDF) |
| 1997 | "Fit for a Cinderella?." Rotunda, 30 (2), 48. (PDF) |
| 1996 | "Not a Decoy." Rotunda, 28 (4), 48. |
| 1996 | "Lienzo of Tlapiltepec: A Weaving of Ancient Mexican History." Que Pasa, 1 (4), 15-18. |
| 1996 | "Blackfoot Beadwork: A Tradition Embroidered in Glass." Rotunda, 29 (1), 11-21. (PDF) |
| 1995 | "A Headdress Fit for a Horse?." Rotunda, 28 (1), 41-47. (PDF) |
| 1994 | "Shirt Tales." Rotunda, 27 (4), 48. (PDF) |
| 1993 | "War Paint: Blackfoot and Sarcee Painted Buffalo Robes in the Royal Ontario Museum." Royal Ontario Museum Publications |
| 1991 | "Rare Buffalo Robe Acquired." Rotunda, 24 (2), 5-6. (PDF) |
| 1985 | "A New Perspective on the Blackfoot." Rotunda, 18 (2), 40-45. (PDF) |