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Wooden sculpture featuring a tall, leafless tree surrounded by a ring of smooth stones and lines of upright twigs, rising from a rectangular wooden platform.

Feather Tree

Truman Lowe

Truman Lowe drew on materials from Wisconsin woodlands, his Ho-Chunk family’s reverence for the land, and modernist sculptural technique to create this memorial to his grandmother. A willow tree symbolizing the cycle of life grows at the center. Among its branches are carved feathers and evocative shapes. The grain of the pine platform suggests water divided by rows of willow sticks aligned to the cardinal directions. The stones and sticks recall rituals marking important places.
Artist/Maker
Truman Lowe
(American, Ho-Chunk, 1944 – 2019)
Title
Feather Tree
Date
1990
Material & Process
Southern pine, peeled willow sticks, stones, and rawhide arranged on wood base
Dimensions
144 x 104 x 96 in. overall
Credit
Alice Drews Gladfelter Memorial Fund purchase
Inventory No.
2020.44.1a-w
Classification
Sculpture
Location
United States

Related

November 2020, sold by Nancy Lowe [artist’s wife] (Madison, WI) to the Chazen Museum of Art

  • Ortel, Jo. "Woodland Reflections: The Art of Truman Lowe." Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2003. pp. 63-65
  • University of Wisconsin, La Crosse. Fine Arts Gallery. "Truman Lowe: Streams." University of Wisconsin Press, 1991. p. 11
  • Elvehjem Museum of Art. "University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Art Faculty Exhibition." Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1990. n.p. [not illus.]
  • Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art. "Haga (Third Son): An Exhibition of Sculpture, Drawing, and Painting by Winnebago Artist Truman Lowe." Indianapolis, IN: Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, 1994. pp. 10-11, 53
  • Cassidy, Victor M. "Truman Lowe, Winnebago Artist." Artnet Magazine (1997). http://www.artnet.com/magazine_pre2000/features/cassidy/cassidy97-12-17.asp n.p. [illus]

  • Haga (Third Son): An Exhibition of Sculpture, Drawing, and Painting by Winnebago Artist Truman Lowe: Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, 4/30/1994–7/4/1994
  • University of Wisconsin–Madison Department of Art Faculty Exhibition: Elvehjem Museum of Art, 12/8/1990–1/20/1991

This sculpture, assembled from natural materials, takes the form of a tall, leafless “tree” rising from a rectangular wooden platform. The "tree" features a slender trunk branching into a network of thin, bare “limbs,” connected by thin strips of rawhide wrapped around the joints. Small wooden elements, carved to suggest feathers and leaves, dangle sparsely from the branches. Encircling the base of the trunk is a ring of fourteen smooth, rounded stones in shades of grey and black. These stones rest on a square, light brown wooden base, which itself sits atop the larger rectangular wooden platform with clearly visible woodgrain. The wooden platform is divided into four equal quadrants, delineated by rows of thin, peeled sticks embedded upright in straight lines. The sculpture’s minimalist arrangement and unaltered natural hues highlight the organic textures of its components.

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