Living memory, shaping the future

The Walker Family Collection

In honor of Hans, Tillie and Reba Walker.

Works in the Walker Family Collection
Origins

Given, not bought

Hans Walker Jr. was a Native attorney who spent his career traveling across Indian Country, and along the way clients, colleagues, and friends gave him art. A soapstone grizzly came from Iñupiaq leaders in Nome. A Navajo colleague gave my parents a sandpainting of a man and a woman for their anniversary, and it hung in the hallway I walked past every day. Nobody called any of it a collection.

None of those early pieces were bought. Each came from a relationship that existed before the object did.

That is not how most collections start.

The works that came to my father marked a career. Along the way we added paintings that belonged to my aunts, trailblazers in their own right. Tillie Walker ran the United Scholarship Service for Native students, worked alongside Martin Luther King Jr. in the Poor People’s Campaign, and later served on the Three Affiliated Tribes council. Reba Walker was a nurse and healer.

Works in our care

Stewardship

The pieces we have added since reflect our own choices about which artists and which work belong here. The collection is contemporary now, still Native, and much larger than a hallway.

We own these works, but most of the first ones were given to us, and that has shaped how we hold all of them. Owning them means taking care of them, understanding them, lending and showing them, and thinking carefully about where they should go after us. We call that stewardship. It is a bigger word than ownership, and a harder one to live up to.

We are one stop in the life of the work.

Raven Halfmoon, Pink Lady
Raven Halfmoon | Pink Lady, 2025
The collection

Preserving legacy. Championing innovation. Lending with purpose.

About us

The Walker Family Collection is a living archive of contemporary and traditional Indigenous art, curated with care, rooted in relationship, and built in alignment with the Walker Youngbird Foundation’s guiding mission:

“To honor and uplift Indigenous voices, creating a world where Native artists can reshape cultural perceptions, preserve heritage, and drive societal change through artistic innovation.”

Spanning painting, sculpture, textile, photography, performance documentation, and ceremonial objects, the collection reflects the multiplicity of Indigenous expression across generations, mediums, and nations. It is both a record of history and a catalyst for what’s to come.

An active collection

The Walker Family Collection is not static. It is active, relational, and evolving, supporting Indigenous artists through acquisitions, partnerships, and long-term engagement.

·Acquisition of work by both established and emerging Native artists
·Community-centered stewardship with artist-approved handling and contextualization
·Museum and institutional loans, making work accessible to broader audiences
·Support for under-recognized regions and practices within Native art history
·Archival care and documentation that respects cultural specificity

Lending for exhibitions

The Collection actively supports educational and curatorial initiatives by offering select works on loan to museums, universities, tribal centers, and non-profit galleries. We believe in amplifying Indigenous narratives beyond private ownership and ensuring Native work circulates within dialogues that honor its depth and origin.

Loan requests