Phoenix Art Museum receives largest-ever gift of Native art, nearly 200 works spanning a century

Phoenix Art Museum has acquired 185 modern and contemporary works by Indigenous artists — the largest single gift of Native art in the museum’s history — through a donation from The William P. Healey Collection of Native American Art.

The gift encompasses paintings, drawings, photographs, and sculptures by 99 artists representing 44 tribal nations, significantly expanding the museum’s Art of the Americas Collection with works spanning the 20th century to the present. Among the featured artists are Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Fritz Scholder, Allan Houser, Kay WalkingStick, and Tony Abeyta, who co-curated the collection alongside collector William P. Healey over several decades.

“These works address a critical gap in our holdings,” said Jeremy Mikolajczak, the museum’s Sybil Harrington Director and CEO, noting that the acquisition advances the museum’s goal of telling a more expansive story of the Americas.

A notable feature of the collection is its multigenerational scope, with parent-child pairs among the represented artists — including Fred and Michael Kabotie, Allan Houser and Bob Haozous, and Narciso and Tony Abeyta. Twenty-two of the 99 artists are women.

The museum will open an exhibition drawn from the gift, The Way We Came: A Century of Indigenous Art, on August 26, 2026. Curated by Dr. JoAnna Reyes and Tony Abeyta, the show centers on the concept of “survivance” — a term combining survival and resistance — and explores how Indigenous artists have sustained and reimagined cultural knowledge across generations. It runs through July 11, 2027.

Healey, a lifelong collector, shaped the collection in close partnership with Abeyta to prioritize cultural authenticity, purchasing works directly from artists and their estates. He previously donated 100 works to the St. Louis Art Museum in 2024.

A companion publication is planned for Spring 2028 in partnership with Scala Arts Publishers.