Navajo Textiles: The Crane Collection at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science

Navajo Textiles is a nuanced account of the historical context of the Navajo weavings in the Crane Collection at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science—one of the largest collections of Navajo textiles inthe world. Bringing together the work of anthropologists and indigenous artists, the book explores the Navajo rug trade in the mid-nineteenth century and changes in the Navajo textile market while highlighting the museum’s important, though still relatively unknown, collection of Navajo textiles.

In this unique collaboration among anthropologists, museums, and Navajo weavers, the authors tell the history of consultation and curation of museum exhibits of these pieces over the past several decades.They also provide a narrative of the acquisition of the Crane Collection and a history of Navajo weaving. Personal reflections and insights from foremost Navajo weavers D. Y. Begay and Lynda Teller Pete are also featured, and more than one hundred stunning full-color photographs of the textiles in the collection area ccompanied by technical information about the materials and techniques used in their creation.

The legacy of Navajo weaving is complex and intertwined with the history of the Diné themselves. Navajo Textiles makes the history and practice of Navajo weaving accessible to an audience of scholars and lay people both within and outside the Diné community and will be of great interest to students, academics, collectors, weavers, and the general public.