07/18/2025
"A good portion of Lowry’s work is family history, monumentalized, mythologized, and complicated by a host of ironies. Some of them are comical, some of them bitter, and some an indivisible mixture of both. With her mixed heritage, her family history is also a history of Native resilience, resistance, negotiation, and assimilation. The
most haunting painting in the exhibition directly addresses the murderous toll of the residential school system. Going Home (1992) is a tribute to Lowry’s great-aunt Molly Lowry. At the age of eleven, Molly ran away from the Greenville Indian Industrial School in Northern California, in the middle of winter. She perished from exposure in the attempt; two other girls were recovered, but died shortly afterward, in the wake of frostbite injuries. Another two girls survived the unsuccessful escape. In the painting, Molly in brown-and-white school attire has her hands extended at her sides as she stands in a snowdrift. The gesture recalls saintly icons, palms open in a suggestion of welcome or radical acceptance...."
Excerpt from a review by Chris Lanter of "The Art of Judith Lowry" at the Nevada Museum of Art in Reno, NV. Find the full review in our Summer 2025 issue, out now.
Pictured: Judith Lowry (Pit River Mountain Maidu/Hammawi/Washoe), "Going Home," 1992, acrylic on canvas, 64 × 52 in., collection of the Heard Museum, gift of Kathleen L. and William G. Howard, 4933-1. Photo: Craig Smith. © Judith Lowry.
