Charles C. Eldredge Prize Lecture with Megan A. Smetzer

Art historian Megan A. Smetzer presents her lecture “Gifts from Their Tlingit Grandmothers: Fashioning Relationships Through Beaded Patterns and Threaded Stories.” She is the 2024 recipient of the Eldredge Prize, which annually recognizes originality and thoroughness of research and excellence in writing, for her book “Painful Beauty: Tlingit Women, Beadwork, and the Art of Resilience” (2021). Through extensive archival and museum research, Smetzer shows how beaders countered repressive colonial systems and sustained cultural practices through innovative artistic visions deeply connected to the environment, clan histories, and Tlingit worldviews. “Painful Beauty” is the first academic monograph that centers contemporary Indigenous community-based knowledge about Tlingit beadwork. Smetzer’s research for the book was supported by many Tlingit artists, scholars, and knowledge keepers. Smetzer is an instructor of art history at Capilano University in North Vancouver, British Columbia. This lecture was presented in-person and online at the Smithsonian American Art Museum on Thursday, March 13, 2025. To read more about Smetzer visit https://americanart.si.edu/press/2024/10/megan-smetzer-awarded-36th-annual-eldredge-prize-painful-beauty-tlingit-women.