Kay WalkingStick

In her forty years as an artist, Kay WalkingStick has exhibited around the world. Her paintings take a broad view of what constitutes Native American Art. Her goal being to paint about whom she is — a 20th and 21st century artist and Native American. Many of her paintings are based on sketches, which she made in her extensive travels while on teaching and lecturing assignments in the American southwest and in Italy. She retired from Cornell in 2005 and now lives and works in Jackson Heights, New York. WalkingStick exhibits her work at the June Kelly Gallery in New York City. WalkingStick received a B.F.A. from Arcadia University in 1959 and an M.F.A. from the Pratt Institute in 1975.

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Awards, Grants, and Fellowships (Selected)

  • Distinguished Artist Award, Eiteljorg Fellowship for Native American Fine Artists, Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, Indianapolis (2003)
  • WalkingStick's work is included in H.R. Janson's History of Art, fifth and sixth editions (1995–97)
  • Honoree, Women’s Caucus for Art, National Honor Award for Achievement in the Arts, Boston (1996)
  • Joan Mitchell Foundation Award in Painting (1995)
  • Residency, Rockefeller Conference and Study Center, Bellagio, Italy (1992)

Exhibitions and Presentations (Selected)

  • American Abstraction: Dialogue with the Cosmos, installation, Montclair Museum of Art, New Jersey (2008)
  • Kay WalkingStick: Mythic Dances: Paintings from Four Decades, Southeast Missouri Regional Museum, Cape Girardeau, Missouri (2004)
  • Sensual Texture: The Art of Kay WalkingStick, Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, Indianapolis (2003)

Publications (Selected)

  • "So Fine! Masterworks of Fine Art from the Heard Museum," curator's essay, Great American Artists, Heard Museum, Phoenix (2002)
  • "Primal Visions: Albert Bierstadt 'Discovers' America," catalog essay, A Cherokee Artist Looks at the Landing of Columbus, by Alfred Bierstadt, Montclair Museum, New Jersey (2001)
  • 20th Century Native American Art: Essays on History and Criticism, ed., J.W. Jackson Rushing (1998)
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