Marty Avrett, Morning Mounds Memory, 1985, oil on canvas, 36 x 39 15/16 inches; collection Heard Museum

The Heard Museum in Phoenix, Arizona, houses one of the country's foremost collections of Native American art and is one of the few institutions that collects and displays fine art produced by indigenous peoples. In 1983, the Heard inaugurated a biennial (now triennial) invitational exhibition of contemporary Native American artists. As the only fine art invitational to exclusively feature indigenous artists and their artwork, the Native American Fine Art Invitational has become one of the most important events in the Native American fine arts scene today. Over the past 15 years, the invitational has featured the work of some of the best established and emerging Native American artists.

Art in 2 Worlds: The Native American Fine Art Invitational 1983-1997 celebrates the creativity and innovation of Native American artists by bringing together 52 works from the Heard Museum's seven invitational exhibitions between 1983 and 1997. Working in a variety of media, including oil and acrylic paint, watercolor, pastel, sculpture, ceramics, lithography, etching, serigraphy, and mixed media, the 48 artists represented in this exhibition shatter stereotypes of Indian art and afford viewers the opportunity to expand their understanding of and gain insight into the Native American fine art movement.

That Native American art has evolved far beyond crafts and curios is evident in Art in 2 Worlds, which reveals technical mastery of chosen media and an extraordinary richness and diversity of artistic visions.