In late June 1936, American painter, Clyfford Still (1904–1980), and his Washington State College (WSC) faculty supervisor, Worth Griffin, traveled to the Colville Confederated Tribes Reservation in northeastern Washington and sketched portraits of people they met there, including several Tribal elders. They also captured in detail the nearby Grand Coulee Dam—then under construction—a massive project destroying much of the Tribes’ traditional lifeways. Most critical was the loss of the salmon runs that gave the Nespelem community physical, spiritual, and cultural sustenance. Deeply affected by contrast between 20th-century progress and what many considered an outdated, dying culture, they proposed a summer art program on the Reservation. Established in 1937, the Nespelem Art Colony produced the first extensive visual record of the Nespelem people.
While the impacts of the Nespelem Art Colony on its students, instructors, and the Washington State University community have been well documented, records of the Tribes’ views were scarce. Then, in 2022, the Tribe asked if Colville Reservation youth could become part of the Clyfford Still Museum’s future activities. The Museum team listened to and learned from Tribal leadership, local indigenous artists, teachers, and the children who eventually served as co-curators, selecting and interpreting Still’s art. In his portraits they recognized relatives and loved ones; many landscape paintings represented familiar places and home. In the body of abstract paintings Still made in the decades after he left Washington state, they saw reminders of grandparents; of Indigenous textiles and artworks; and the foundation of our shared present. Their “Tell Clyfford I Said ‘Hi’” Exhibition—delightfully documented in this exhibition catalog by the same name—opened in Denver in September 2025. In both, Indigenous children’s voices and perspectives are everywhere, as is the joy these students derived from engaging with Still’s art and connecting to their own familial and Tribal histories.
