Becoming Mary Sully

"The moment to savor [Mary Sully's] semi-abstract celebrity 'portraits' (Albert Einstein, ZaSu Pitts), which combine a modernist spirit and Native American aesthetics, has arrived."—New York Times

"In his evaluation of Sully and her work, Deloria leaves no stone unturned. What results is a compelling model—grounded in comprehensive historical and cultural analyses—for evaluating the works of women artists disconnected from larger art movements. In the case of Mary Sully, our understanding of her art and life reveals a unique approach by a bicultural woman that rejects limited views on American Indian art in favor of one grounded in an imagined American Indian futurity that should most certainly lead us to question our understanding of American modern art as a whole."—Woman's Art Journal

"Sully's art survives as a testament to Indigenous culture in the face of Western resistance."—UW Daily

"Becoming Mary Sully" introduces the stunning and original work of a heretofore unknown artist."

"Phil Deloria's Becoming Mary Sully endows what may seem to be a modest group of documents with radical potential. Moving through biography, formal analysis, art criticism, ethnographic and psychological theory, and Oceti Sakowin history and values, he offers an extended argument for seeing the work of this self-taught artist as engaging modernity from a deeply Indigenous perspective."—NAIS Journal

"Mary Sully's art stops you in your tracks. So do the interpretations offered by her great-nephew Phil Deloria. Deloria argues that Sully was a 'native to modernism,' an extraordinary early twentieth-century talent whose personality prints disrupt the categories of American Indian and modernist art genres. Once again, Deloria sets the bar for brilliant Indigenous scholarship that elevates our understandings of our shared—Indigenous and non-Indigenous—world."—K. Tsianina Lomawaima, School of Social Transformation, Arizona State University

"In an astonishing act of recovery, Becoming Mary Sully reorients the study of Native American aesthetics. Through prodigious research and creative analysis, Phil Deloria locates his great-aunt's life and work within the broader currents of American cultural history and in the process challenges the often unhelpful disciplinary boundaries that disconnect "American" and "American Indian" art. A wonderful addition."—Ned Blackhawk, professor of history and American studies, Yale University