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# Nelson-Atkins Museum Appoints Tahnee Ahtone as Curator of Native American Art
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/nelson-atkins-museum-appoints-tahnee-ahtone-as-curator-of-native-american-art/
- Published: 2024-04-10T21:38:23.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:37:36.000Z
- Description: A former Hyperallergic fellow, Ahtone joins the museum after serving as director and curator of the Kiowa Tribal Museum in Carnegie, Oklahoma.
- Author: Rhea Nayyar
- Tags: News, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 09:36 (2023, 2024, part 2)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2024/04/tahneeahtone2024_nama-1.jpg)

Tahnee Ahtone (Ahtoneharjo-Growingthunder), curator and an enrolled citizen of the Kiowa Tribe and descendant of the Seminole and Mvskoke Nations (photo by Ann Sherman Photography, courtesy Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art)

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri, [announced](https://nelson-atkins.org/new-hires-at-the-nelson-atkins/?ref=hyperallergic.com) yesterday, April 9, that it has appointed Tahnee Ahtone **(**Ahtoneharjo-Growingthunder) as curator of Native American Art with support from the Mellon-Wingate Leadership in Art Museums Initiative.

Ahtone, who is an enrolled citizen of the Kiowa Tribe and a descendant of the Seminole and Mvskoke Nations, has over 20 years of museum experience and was a member of *Hyperallergic*’s 2021–22 [Emily Hall Tremaine Journalism Fellowship for Curators](https://hyperallergic.com/694302/announcing-the-recipients-of-the-2021-tremaine-journalism-fellowship-for-curators/) cohort.

"I started on February 19, 2024, by developing a tribal relations roster and working on projects centered around the new \[Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act\] regulations. We are eager and looking forward to the possibilities of engaging the local community and tribal nations at large in the gallery's future rotation," Ahtone told *Hyperallergic* in an email.

As a *Hyperallergic* fellow, Ahtone penned three articles about her curatorial practice and the cultural and historical importance of a series of Kiowa Tribe murals created in the late 1980s. The murals were presented to the public for the first time in an [email exhibition illuminating the large-scale works](https://email.hyperallergic.com/t/ViewEmail/y/EA6236AE0C3B14E32540EF23F30FEDED/2C6C4528779737EC3D3F7F9A22A6E02E?ref=hyperallergic.com) of late Kiowa artists Parker Boyiddle Jr., Mirac Creepingbear, and Sherman Chaddlesone, throughout which Ahtone contextualized their depictions of Kiowa oral histories of creation, spirituality, and contemporary expression.

During her [virtual fellowship event](https://hyperallergic.com/707033/native-american-sovereignty-impact-indigenous-art-curation-conversation-with-tahnee-ahtone-kiowa-tribal-museum-director/), Ahtone emphasized the importance of Native sovereignty and stressed that institutions must include tribal governments when working with cultural and artistic materials related to their communities. The [Nelson-Atkins Museum was criticized in 2015](https://hyperallergic.com/217807/in-mainstream-museums-confronting-colonialism-while-curating-native-american-art/) for its organization of the exhibition *Plains Indians*: *Artists of Earth and Sky* at the Metropolitan Museum of Art after Aaniiih Nation curator Joe Horse Capture wrote in [*Indian Country Today*](https://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2015/04/25/horse-capture-native-people-have-story-tell-their-own-160144?ref=hyperallergic.com) that the show had no Native partners involved, only Native consultants. The museum also [faced criticism in 2020](https://hyperallergic.com/568346/nelson-atkins-museum-allows-police-to-station-on-premises-sparking-outcry/) after its security team allowed police to station on its premises during a nearby Black Lives Matter protest.

Previously, Ahtone has served as the director and curator of the Kiowa Tribal Museum in Carnegie, Oklahoma; a Tribal Nations liaison and curator at the Oklahoma History Center in Oklahoma City; and a curator at the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center in Mashantucket, Connecticut.

Ahtone also co-curated the exhibition [*Lighting Pathways: Matriarchs of Oklahoma Native Art*](https://nationalcowboymuseum.org/exhibitions/lighting-pathways-matriarchs-of-oklahoma-native-art/?ref=hyperallergic.com), on view through April 28 at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City.