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Podcast: New Books in Art
Episode: Philip J. Deloria, "Becoming Mary Sully: Toward an American Indian Abstract" (U Washington Press, 2019)
Description: Mary Sully was many things: a Dakota woman, an artist, and an American living through a heyday of early celebrity culture in the United States. All of these facets of her life and of her context are present in her art. In Becoming Mary Sully: Toward an American Indian Abstract (University of Washington Press, 2019), Harvard University professor and OAH President (and direct Sully relative) Phil Deloria uncovers Sully's artwork, long tucked away in family attics, and explains why it matters. Deloria argues that Sully's abstract "personality prints" representing various American celebrities of the early 20th century placed her outside the ma...