Mary Sully

Image Not Available

Mary Sully

Dakota Sioux, 1896 - 1963

BiographyMary Sully (nee Susan Deloria), was born in 1896 on the Standing Rock
reservation in South Dakota. Descended from Euro- and Native
American ancestry, Sully straddled both of these worlds, striving to find
a place where her own artistic vision would be accepted and understood.
Sully traveled extensively throughout her life with her sister,
anthropologist Ella Cara Deloria, and together the two women
effectively documented, in both written and visual form, much of 20thcentury
life as they experienced it. Working without patronage, in near
obscurity and largely self-taught, Sully produced over 100 intricately
drawn and vividly colored three-panel ‘personality prints’ and several
detailed ‘ethnographic’ drawings that captured the culture of her Dakota
community and other Native nations; scenes she observed while living
in New York City; and vignettes of popular culture of the 1920s and
‘30s. Sully primarily drew with colored pencil, graphite, and occasional
ink on mid-grade paper. A commitment to creatively exploring her life
and times, combined with her Dakota-influenced artistic sensibilities,
resulted in a body of work unlike anything produced before or since. Mary Sully, like many of her contemporaries, had a fascination with
celebrities. She and her sister were avid film and theater fans and
frequented many theaters during their long-term stays in New York City.
Sully was exposed to numerous popular publications, using stories and
images as inspiration for her own art. The public figures who attracted
her interest ranged from star athletes to stage performers to charismatic
religious leaders. And like her Dakota ancestors who worked with beads
and quills, she was able to translate what she saw of these personalities
into a distinct visual language. The subtlety and poignancy with which
she layered her experiences as a Dakota woman and an intensely
creative artist offers a fresh lens through which to view American life in
the first half of the 20th century.

Person TypeIndividual

Terms