Jaune Quick-to-See Smith: Wilding
To coincide with Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, King of the Mountain, 2024–2025 being shown as part of Frieze Sculpture 2025 in The Regent’s Park and presentations of Smith’s work by Garth Greenan Gallery and Stephen Friedman Gallery at Frieze London and Frieze Masters. Fruitmarket Publishing is excited to launch their new title Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Wilding which celebrates the work in their major retrospective exhibition opening at Fruitmarket, Edinburgh on 07.11.25.This exhibition was conceived in conversation with the artist before her sad and sudden death at the beginning of 2025 and will be the first time her work has been seen in Scotland.
She wanted it to make a positive contribution to debates around the politics of land and land ownership and stewardship, and to ask questions to inspire us to pay attention and take action. Who owns the land? Who takes care of it? How can we better live together with each other and with nature? This book includes paintings from across Smith’s career, an introduction from Frutimarket Director and curator Fiona Bradley, and three new essays. Academic, gallerist and curator Suzanne Frick engages with the breadth of Smith’s practice. Scholar, curator, artist, and enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation Lara Evans discusses the work in the context of Native American Sovereignty. Independent curator and art historian Lowery Stokes Sims writes about Smith’s Tierra Madre paintings, her last great series. Two previously unpublished pieces of writing – one by Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, the other by her son and collaborator, Neal Ambrose-Smith, begin and the end of the book.
Fiona Bradley, Fruitmarket Director said: We are proud to be bringing her ferocious intelligence and brilliant work to new audiences in Scotland in this exhibition that will celebrate her life, work and career-long mission to legitimise the work of contemporary Native American artists.
Jaune Quick-to-See Smith (1940–2025) was born at the St. Ignatius Indian Mission on her reservation and was an enrolled Salish member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Nation, Montana. Smith received an Associate of Arts Degree at Olympic College in Bremerton, Washington in 1960, a BA in Art Education from Framingham State College, Massachusetts in 1976, and an MA in Visual Arts from the University of New Mexico in 1980.
Specifications: 144pp; softback, 270 x 205mm portrait, full colour, 65 colour illustrations ISBN 978-1-908612-71-7