Works that talk family lore

by in At the Museums dept
The Good Marriage, 1997, Acrylic on canvas, 60 x 48 inches. Private Collection; IMAGE 5: Welgatim’s Song, 2001, Acrylic on canvas, 68 x 90 inches. Crocker Art Museum, gift of the artist, 2009.113. All images © Judith Lowry.

RENO, NV (PNAN) – Opening Saturday, March 22, 2025 at the Nevada Museum of Art, “The Art of Judith Lowry” goes on view in the Contemporary Gallery. This exhibition is co-curated by Melissa Melero-Moose (Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe) and Ann M. Wolfe, the Museum’s Andrea and John C. Deane Family Chief Curator and Associate Director.

In her large-scale and colorful paintings, Judith Lowry (Mountain Maidu/Pit River/Washoe) chronicles the stories of her family and the legends, traditions and complexities of her Indigenous ancestry.

Born to a Euro-Australian mother and a father who traced his roots to Native Northern California and Scots-Irish cultures, Lowry’s works reflect the Indigenous creation stories her father shared. She considers her paintings a modern extension of storytelling and a way of recording the oral histories of her family and community.

Obedient Wives, 2001, Acrylic on canvas, 65 x 90 inches. The John and Susan Horseman Collection, Courtesy of the Horseman Collection.

Lowry earned her B.A. in fine art from Humboldt State University, followed by an M.A. in painting and drawing from Chico State University. A resident of both Nevada City and Susanville, CA, and is an enrolled member of the federally recognized Pit River Tribe.

In addition, her work has been exhibited widely and her paintings are included in the permanent collections of major museums such as, Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, Peabody Essex Museum, Crocker Art Museum, Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian, Denver Art Museum as well as the Nevada Museum of Art.

Welgatim’s Song, 2001, Acrylic on canvas, 68 x 90 inches. Crocker Art Museum, gift of the artist, 2009.113. All images © Judith Lowry.

This retrospective exhibition features Lowry’s paintings alongside a concurrent exhibition featuring highlights from Lowry’s personal art collection that she recently donated to the Nevada Museum of Art. The conversations that unfold in Lowry’s paintings and the work of her friends and colleagues represent a lifetime of dialogue about ideas and issues that have shaped her life.