Jaune Quick-to-See Smith is internationally prominent for her groundbreaking artwork that made visible the history and experiences of Indigenous people. Smith is today considered one of the most prominent Native American artists of the past century and is recognized for merging contemporary issues with Indigenous heritage. She was honored in 2023 with a major solo retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, the first Native American artist in the museum’s history to receive such an exhibition. Smith’s art transcends boundaries—both cultural and artistic—through her deep commitment to storytelling, preservation of Native American truths, and the reclamation of Indigenous identities. Over the course of more than five decades, her art across a diverse range of media, has served as a powerful means for her voice to be heard and for her unflinching efforts in behalf of redefining the history and identity of Indigenous people in American life. Smith’s art bridged the past to the present to ensure that Native history is neither forgotten nor remembered erroneously. “Smith’s images bear witness. They are a recounting of truths… She only asks us not to forget … She reminds us what is sacred,” wrote Patricia Marroquin Norby (Purépecha), The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Associate Curator of Native American Art, in her essay entitled “The Things She Carries” published in the catalog accompanying the Whitney Museum retrospective. An enrolled member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Nation, Smith was born on January 15, 1940, in the St. Ignatius Mission on the Flathead Indian Reservation in Montana. She spent the latter part of her childhood with her father, a horse trader, near Tacoma, Washington, before ultimately earning a BA in Art Education, in 1976, from Framingham State College in Massachusetts. She moved to Albuquerque thereafter and in 1980 received an MA in Visual Arts from the University of New Mexico. Smith’s extraordinary career spans over five decades, with her works held in permanent collections of numerous prominent institutions, such as the Museum of Modern Art; the Whitney Museum; the Smithsonian American Art Museum; the Museum of Modern Art, Quito, Ecuador; the Museum of Mankind, Vienna, Austria; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; the Brooklyn Museum; the Metropolitan Museum of Art; and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; among others. Smith has completed over one hundred solo exhibitions and curated over thirty Indigenous art shows. Her innovative use of form and keen exploration of Native American identity have earned her numerous accolades, including the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters Grant (1996), a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Women’s Caucus for the Arts (1997), and the prestigious United States Artists fellowship (2020). Smith has also been awarded with four honorary doctorate degrees and elected to the prestigious National Academy of Art in New York. She was the recipient of the New Mexico Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts. A pioneering figure in both art and advocacy, Smith has also played a vital role in bringing Native artists into the mainstream. She founded the Grey Canyon Group, a collective that exhibited their work together, both domestically and internationally, and she co-organized and curated landmark exhibitions including Women of Sweetgrass, Cedar, and Sage (1985). Just before her passing, she curated at the Zimmerli Museum, Indigenous Identities: Here, Now & Always (2025), an exhibition that features 97 living artists representing over 74 Indigenous nations and communities across North America. Her work is widely recognized for its clever or ironic humor and deeply reflective nature as she confronts the injustices faced by Indigenous peoples historically and in contemporary society. Smith’s distinctive voice in art and her dedication to Indigenous rights have made her a celebrated and influential figure in the art world of today and her legacy will be a deeply significant one.