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Jean LaMarr (born 1945) is a Northern Paiute/Achomawi artist and activist from California. She creates murals, prints, dioramas, sculptures, and interactive installations. She is an enrolled citizen of the Susanville Indian Rancheria.
Curator Jan Rindfleisch writes of LaMarr: "Jean LaMarr has honored and supported tribal communities for four decades. From drawing Indigenous youth during the 1960s to creating a compelling series of Bear Dance posters years later, her pictorial narrative counters the long-standing erasure of Indigenous presence. She often focused on women, celebrating and documenting their history and survival."
LaMarr is the founder of the Native American Graphic Workshop.
In 2022, the California Society of Printmakers recognized LaMarr's contributions to the field of fine art printmaking with a lifetime, honorary membership.
In 2022, the Nevada Museum of Art launched The Art of Jean LaMarr, a retrospective of more than 60 of her works. This traveled to the Boise Art Museum in Idaho and the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The exhibition included prints, mixed-media works, paintings and sculptures, many dealing with the Native American women and cultural stereotypes. Her work critiques racist representations of Native peoples, especially women, as well as addresses the legacy of colonialism as well as environmental justice issues. Debra Harry, (Kooyooe Tukadu Numu from Pyramid Lake) who is also a professor of Indigenous Studies at the University of Nevada has written of the work in the exhibition: “Jean LaMarr speaks from a place of fierce pride in her indigeneity, and a willingness to challenge the erasure and structural racism that Indigenous Peoples face in their lives. Her work has that razor-sharp political commentary, yet can transmit the softness and beauty of our cultures, particularly of Indigenous women.”
After Spencer's death in 2015, she unsuccessfully fought the Navajo Nation in court over where he was to be buried. The Navajo Nation ruled that he must be buried in Arizona in the community in which he was born, but LaMarr argued that he wished to be buried in their Susanville community.
Personal life
LaMarr married DeeRoy "Spence" Spencer (Navajo people 1945–2015), a Vietnam War veteran and designer. The couple has one son.
Works
Prints
Murals
Selected exhibitions
Further reading
Categories: 1945 Births, Living People, Native American Women Painters, Native American Printmakers, 20th-century American Painters, 20th-century American Printmakers, 20th-century American Women Artists, 21st-century American Painters, 21st-century American Printmakers, 21st-century American Women Artists, Northern Paiute Artists, Pit River Tribes, San Jose City College Alumni, University Of California, Berkeley Alumni, College Of Marin Faculty, San Francisco State University Faculty, California College Of The Arts Faculty, People From Susanville, California, Painters From California, American Women Printmakers, American Women Academics, 20th-century Native American Artists, 21st-century Native American Artists, 20th-century Native American Women Artists, 21st-century Native American Women Artists, American Women Activists, Native American Women Activists, Northern Paiute Women Artists
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