Memory and Imagination: The Legacy of Maidu Indian Artist Frank Day

Frank Day (1902-1976) was a Konkow Maidu self-taught painter whose life, work, and teachings played a major role in the revitalization of Native American dance and visual art in California in the 1960s and 1970s. Memory and Imagination is the first scholarly, in-depth assessment of Frank Day's art and legacy.

The story of Day's life and art reveals complex processes of social change and cultural regeneration in 20th-century Native American culture. Dobkins' essay on Day's life and art discusses the complexities of memory, imagination, tradition, and creativity in Day's paintings and places Day in the context of American Indian art history. Personal recollections and statements by Wintu artist Frank LaPena and contemporary Maidu artists Dal Castro, Harry Fonseca, Judith Lowry, and Frank Tuttle attest to Day's importance as a teacher of tribal lore and culture through song, dance, and painting.