This volume, coinciding with the opening of permanent Art of the Americas galleries at the Walters Art Museum in 2025, examines how, for people in the Indigenous Americas, materials had and continue to have a life of their own.Ancient and modern craftspeople shaped jade, gold, feathers, and clay into exquisite artworks, but the meanings of those objects are intertwined with the living essence of the raw materials themselves.Thirty-five highlights, ancient t...

In the past fifty years, the study of indigenous and pre-Columbian art has evolved from a groundbreaking area of inquiry in the mid-1960s to an established field of research. This period also spans the career of art historian Esther Pasztory. Few scholars have made such a broad and lasting impact as Pasztory, both in terms of our understanding of specific facets of ancient American art as well as in our appreciation of the evolving analytical tendencies related to the broader field of stud...