Eiteljorg Museum launches new book In the Company of Our Relatives

A new book published by the Eiteljorg Museum takes a groundbreaking approach in celebrating a collection of extraordinary Native art of the Great Lakes region. Rather than a traditional institutional narrative, the book shares the personal perspectives of Native essayists who are descendants of the peoples who created the artworks and cultural belongings.

The book, In the Company of Our Relatives: The Richard Pohrt, Jr. Collection, will be released September 16 at the Eiteljorg. Beautifully illustrated with many color photographs, the 303-page book was the result of two years of Native-led efforts to ensure that stories of the Great Lakes cultural belongings in the collection were told by Native voices. Co-editors of the book are Monica Raphael (Anishinaabe / Sičáŋğu Lakóta), the Hoback curator of Great Lakes Native art, cultures and community engagement at the Eiteljorg, and Mary Deleary (Chippewas of the Thames First Nation), Ph.D.

Thanks to a generous grant from Lilly Endowment Inc., the Eiteljorg Museum in 2019 acquired an exceptional collection of cultural belongings from tribal nations of the Great Lakes region, with works that date from the late 18^th to mid-20^th centuries. They had been collected by Ann Arbor, Michigan resident Richard Pohrt Jr., a longtime admirer and collector of Great Lakes Native art, who maintained them for many years in remarkable condition until the Eiteljorg was able to acquire them to add to its collections.

Artworks and cultural belongings in the collection – which the editors and authors lovingly refer to as "relatives" – include beaded bandolier bags and moccasins with floral designs; shirts, leggings and sashes with ribbonwork; elaborately adorned cradleboards; and carved wooden bowls or tools. Indigenous cultures of the Great Lakes region represented in this collection and book include the Bodwéwadmi (Potawatomi), Cree, Ho-Chunk, Huron, Kickapoo, Lenape, Menominee, Meskwaki, Mohawk, Myaamia (Miami), Odawa, Ojibwe, Otoe-Missouria, Shawnee and Wyandot. A number of artworks from this collection are now on view in the Eiteljorg’s Native American art galleries exhibition, Expressions of Life: Native Art in North America.

In addition to supporting the acquisition of the Pohrt collection, Lilly Endowment Inc. grant funding also enabled the Eiteljorg to host a February 2024 convening where a group of Great Lakes Native representatives engaged with the cultural belongings their ancestors created. The new book includes essays by 20 Native culture bearers sharing the histories and significance of works to which they are connected.  

“In the Company of Our Relatives is not a traditional academic study. Instead, it is a vibrant tapestry of voices from Native descendants related to the original makers, offering reflections that are deeply personal and rooted in oral traditions. Each essay was edited with care not to revise, but to honor and preserve the integrity of each contributor’s voice. Together, these stories offer a rare and intimate glimpse into the living relationships between Indigenous peoples and their ancestral belongings,” Raphael stated.

The book will be publicly released at a museum event Tuesday, September 16 during another Great Lakes Native Art Convening. Museum visitors are invited to attend two public panel discussions with editors and contributing authors of the book, taking place at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. Tuesday; both are included with museum admission. Details are at Eiteljorg.org/events.  

Starting Tuesday, copies of In the Company of Our Relatives can be purchased through the Eiteljorg Museum Store for $69.95 each; citizens of federally recognized Native American tribes and Canadian First Nations are eligible for a 20 percent discount.

While Eiteljorg Museum regularly publishes softcover art catalogs highlighting its new exhibitions, In the Company of Our Relatives is the longest and most comprehensive art book the museum has published since Native Art Now!, a retrospective of the Eiteljorg Contemporary Art Fellowship, in 2017.