Mary 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.