The Art and the Romance of Indian Basketry / Clark Field Collection, Philbrook Art Center, Tulsa, 1964

clark field
clark field collection philbrook art center • tulsa • 1964
Published by Philbrook Art Center Tulsa, Oklahoma 1964
Mr. Field has combined his enthusiasm for the art of Indian basketry with a high degree of scientific scholarship. He has kept careful records, which will become increasingly valuable as old specimens become even more rare and this Indian skill gradually dies out in this modern world. His daughter, Dorothy Field Maxwell, has assisted Mr. and Mrs. Field in their collection and with the preparation of this brochure. Mrs. Jeanne Snodgrass, Curator of Indian Art at Philbrook, has also assisted with the brochure in an editorial capacity.
Mr. Field has performed an invaluable service to humanity in his long dedication to the preservation of this most important facet of the original Americans, and Philbrook Art Center will be, for countless generations, a mecca for those who wish to enjoy this fascinating utilitarian, yet esthetically meaningful art form.
Donald G. Humphrey Director Philbrook Art Center Clark Field
The need for food containers in early human communities led to the “invention” of basketry. The first baskets may have been made of animal skin or twigs; but soon evolved into the use of more suitable materials such as vegetable fibres. Because of the organic materials used in making baskets, most of the earliest examples have been lost through decay. A few examples have been preserved but only in areas of extremely dry climate, such as in Egypt, in Chile and Peru in South America, and in the southwestern United States. Radiocarbon tests of woven artifacts establish the existence and the use of baskets in Nevada, Utah and Oregon as early as 9000 to 700 B.C., and that Egyptians of the pre-dynastic period (c. 5000 B.C.) used baskets. Early literary sources, such as the Bible, mention baskets and other woven articles such as the “ark of bulrushes” in which the infant Moses was hidden (Exod. 2: 3, 53); baskets were used to bring the tithes to the temple, and Matthew talked of “twelve baskets full.” (Matt. 14: 20.)