Spring

In the early half of the twentieth century, at a moment when modernism, abstraction, Art Nouveau-style designs, and Native American art established a place in fine art museums across America, Sully quietly began to revolutionize Native and American art by intentionally and carefully making connections between these seemingly unrelated genres, and, in doing so, perhaps unintentionally transformed the field of American art. In the work entitled Spring Sully uses bold colors in the shapes of hearts and flowers, along with winged forms, to evoke the emotions associated with the season, including a flight of love and ideas flowing, a new sense of possibility and freedom, and the reawakening of the soul. These beautiful flowers and hearts are drawn from Sully's Dakota aesthetic canon: Dakota and other Native artists of the Upper Great Lakes region employ similar designs and use of color in beadwork, most commonly found in attire made for loved ones.