Julie Buffalohead (b. 1972, enrolled Ponca Tribe of Oklahoma) is a visual artist living and working in St. Paul, Minnesota. She received her BFA from Minneapolis College of Art and Design in 1995 and her MFA from Cornell University in 2001.
Her work has focused thematically on describing Indian cultural experience through personal metaphor and narrative. Just as frequently as the work has been evocative of animals, anthropomorphism and nature, it has been a critique of the simulacrum of the Old West, and of the prejudicial commercialization of Native culture.
“I endeavor to create work relating to my experience as a Native woman. Historically, stories about American Indian people were written by anthropologists or other non-natives. When American Indians today tell their own stories we can change the perspective. We can reclaim the narrative of ourselves as distinct. I develop my work in response to social concerns and phenomena that exist in America today.” —Julie Buffalohead, 2026
Buffalohead has received the Trellis Art Fund Milestone Grant (2025), the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant (2019), the Lillian Orlowsky and William Freed Grant (2019), the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship (2018), the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant (2016), and the McKnight Foundation Fellowship for Visual Arts (2015), among other fellowships and accolades.
Solo exhibitions include Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Overland Park Kansas (2026); Tweed Museum of Art, MN (2026); Minneapolis Institute of Arts, MN (2019-20); Denver Art Museum, CO (2018-19); Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, NY (2012-13); Highpoint Center for Printmaking, MN (2015-16); Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, Santa Fe, NM (2015); Western Carolina University, NC (2018); Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, NM (2015); The Plains Art Museum, ND (2015); Minnesota Museum of American Art, MN (2014); Rochester Art Center, MN (2015); among others.
Group exhibitions include Museum of Kansas City, MO (2026); Portland Museum of Art, OR (2025); Tweed Museum of Art, MN (2025); Plains Art Museum, ND (2025); Zimmerli Art Museum, NJ (2025); Albuquerque Museum, NM (2024); Wellin Museum of Art, NY (2024); Baltimore Museum of Art, MO (2024); National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. (2023); Chazen Museum of Art, WI (2021); Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, NY (2019-22); Rockbund Museum of Art, Shanghai (2019); Schingoethe, Center, Aurora University, IL (2019); Walton Arts Center, AK (2018-19); Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, IN (2017-18); among others.
Public collections include the Denver Art Museum, CO; Detroit Institute of Arts, MI; Minneapolis Institute of Art, MN; Walker Art Center, MN; Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, MO; Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, D.C.; Heard Museum, AZ; Eiteljorg Museum, IN; The Field Museum, IL; Rockwell Museum, NY; Detroit Institute of Arts, MI; Weisman Art Museum, MN; Minnesota Museum of American Art, MN; Tweed Museum of Art, MN; Cafesjian Art Trust Museum, MN; Chazen Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin, WI; Schingoethe Center, IL; Western Carolina University Fine Art Museum, NC; National Museum of Wildlife Art, WY; Davis Museum, Wellesley, MA; Weatherspoon Art Museum, University of North Carolina, NC; Yale University Art Gallery, CT; Smith College Museum of Art, MA; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; Wellin Museum of Art, Hamilton College, NY; among others.
