[Exhibition]
A Song for the Horse Nation

About This Event

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C., opens a major exhibition this fall that explores one of the greatest sagas of human contact with the animal world—American Indians and horses. The exhibition opens Oct. 29. A press preview will be held Oct. 26 from 10 to 11:30 a.m.

The critically acclaimed exhibition, first shown at the museum’s George Gustav Heye Center in New York (Nov. 14, 2009-July 10, 2011), doubles its exhibition space at the flagship museum on the National Mall to 9,500 square feet and includes 15 major additional objects. Among them is a 19th-century, 16-foot-tall, 38-foot-circumference Lakota tipi, in which 110 hand-painted horses, some with riders, all at a full gallop, cover the entire surface in rich reds, turquoise blues and golds as vivid and fresh as the day they were created. These battle and horse-raiding scenes proclaim the heroic deeds of the warrior who once lived in the tipi.