Men's Wearing Blanket (Third Phase Chief Style)
Navajo (Diné) (Navajo (Diné), active late 19th century; Navajo Nation (parts of Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah, United States))
c. 1870–1880
- Medium
- Wool, wedge tapestry weave, bound edges with corner tassels
- Classification
- Textile
- Dimensions
- With tassels: 165.1 × 195.6 cm (65 × 77 in.); Without tassels: 161.3 × 193.7 cm (63 1/2 × 76 1/4 in.)
- Culture
- Navajo Nation, Arizona, New Mexico, & Utah
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Textiles
- Credit line
- Gift of the Powell Family in memory of their parents Father Peter Powell and Virginia Raisch Powell
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
Horizontal black stripes and bright red diamonds span this men’s wearing blanket. White crosses dotting its edges and center pay homage to Spider Woman (Na’ashjé’ii Asdzą́ą́), the sacred being who gave Navajo people the gift of weaving. Weavers tell Spider Woman stories only in the winter time, when spiders and other insects are at rest.
Although Navajo blankets are often displayed flat, they are created to be folded and worn. Fifth-generation Navajo weaver Lynda Teller Pete emphasizes that these blankets are “made for warmth.” Not only do blankets provide physical comfort, their circulation through trade economies also sustains weavers’ communities. “Every textile that Navajo people have produced fed someone’s family,” says Teller Pete.
This blanket was donated by the family of Father Peter J. Powell (1928–2022). Father Powell was an Anglican priest, a Northern Cheyenne Chiefs Society member, and a scholar of Cheyenne art and culture, who served Chicago’s Indigenous communities.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
