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

Navajo Textiles provides a nuanced account the Navajo weavings in the Crane Collection at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science—one of the largest collections of Navajo textiles in the 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 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 are accompanied by technical information about the materials and techniques used in their creation. An introduction by Ann Lane Hedlund documents the growing collaboration between Navajo weavers and museums in Navajo textile research. 

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 laypeople both within and outside the Diné community.

Laurie D. Webster is an independent scholar, textile consultant, and visiting scholar in the School of Anthropology at the University of Arizona.

Louise I. Stiver is a museum consultant specializing in research and content development and the formersenior curator of the New Mexico History Museum/Palace of the Governors.

D. Y. Begay is a weaver from a lineage of esteemed Navajo weavers. Her tapestries have been collectedby both private and major museums in North America and Europe and featured in internationalpublications. She has co-curated exhibits at the Kennedy Museum of Art, the National Museum of the American Indian, and the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian and is a recipient of the Lifetime Contributions to Native American Art Award.

Lynda Teller Pete is a fifth-generation Navajo weaver who grew up weaving Two Grey Hills tapestries, taught by her mother and sisters. She has won several textile awards, including Best of Division and Best of Classification at the Santa Fe Indian Market in 2011 and Best of Division again in 2013. She also appeared in a 2016 segment of Craft in America.