This is a chronological list of significant or pivotal moments in the development of Native American art or the visual arts of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. Earlier dates, especially before the 18th century, are mostly approximate.
Before common era
33,950–15,050 BCE: Artists paints hundreds of images at Serra da Capivara, Piauí, in northeastern Brazil. 12,800–8,500 BCE: Artists etch the Winnemucca Lake petroglyphs, near Reno, Nevada. 11,000 BCE: Megafauna bone etched with a profile image of a walking mammoth and cross-hatched designs left near Vero Beach, Florida is the oldest known portable art in the Americas 10,000–7000 BCE: "Horny Little Man," a petroglyph depicting a stick figure with an oversized phallus, is carved in Lapa do Santo, a cave in central-eastern Brazil, is the oldest reliably dated rock art in the Americas. 9250–8950 BCE: Clovis points - thin, fluted projectile points created using bifacial percussion flaking - are created by Clovis culture peoples in the Plains and Southwestern North America 1914: Louisa Keyser, Washoe basket maker, experiences peak of her fame 1915: Iñupiaq men invent baleen basketry 1916: In a controversial move, Navajo weaver Hastiin Klah (1867–1937) incorporates Yeibichei imagery into a rug 1917: Quechua photographer Martín Chambi establishes his own photography studio in Peru 1917–1930s: Seminole women in Florida develop their unique patchwork appliqué designs 1918: Julian Martinez (San Ildefonso Pueblo) invents the matte-on-glossy blackware ceramic technique 1920s: The Kwakwaka'wakw Four (Chief George, Charley George, Sr., Willie Seaweed, and George Walkus) collaborate to revive and modernize Kwakwaka'wakw art 1922: Social Indigenist movement begins in Peru and thrives for three decades 1922: First Santa Fe Indian Market held, sponsored by the Museum of New Mexico 1925: Native Arts department of the Denver Art Museum was founded 1926: Indigenist Movement formed in Ecuador by Camilo Egas, Oswaldo Guayasamín, and other Quechua and Mestizo artists 1927: First Nations art exhibited with Euro-Canadian art in the Exhibition of the Canadian West Coast Art in the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa 1928: Kiowa Six participate in the International Art Congress in Prague, Czech Republic 1931: Exposition of Indian Tribal Arts opens at the Grand Central Art Galleries in New York City. Sponsored by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, the Secretary of the Interior, and the College Art Association, the exhibition of over 600 artworks then toured the Venice Biennale. 1932: Kiowa Six participate in the Venice Biennale. Their art, according to Dorothy Dunn, "was acclaimed the most popular exhibit among all the rich and varied displays assembled." 1932: Professor Mary Stone McClendon "Ataloa" (Chickasaw, 1895–1967) founds the Ataloa Art Lodge, a Native American art center at Bacone College, in Muskogee, Oklahoma 1932: The Studio at the Santa Fe Indian School is established by Dorothy Dunn 1933–34: Century of Progress Exposition, better known as the Chicago World's Fair features Native artists such as Navajo artists Fred Peshlaikai, Ah-Kena-Bah, and Hastiin Klah, as well as Maria and Julian Martinez, who won Best in Show. 1934: Arts and Crafts of the Indians of the Southwest opens at the DeYoung Museum in San Francisco 1934–1941: The Seneca Indian Arts Project, a WPA-funded project at the Rochester Museum and Science Center, headed by Arthur C. Parker (Seneca), hires 70 Haudenosaunee artists to create almost 6,000 artworks 1936: Indian Arts and Crafts Board created in the US 1938: Osage Nation establishes the oldest tribal museum in Pawhuska, Oklahoma 1939: Many Native artists participate in the 1939 New York World's Fair including realist landscape painter Moses Stranger Horse (Brulé Lakota, 1890–1941) and Fort Sill Apache sculptor Allan Houser (1914–1994) 1939: Hopi artist Fred Kabotie curates a Native American art show at the Golden Gate International Exposition in San Francisco 1941: Indian Art of the United States exhibition shows at the Museum of Modern Art, New York City 1946: Qualla Arts and Crafts is founded on the Qualla Boundary in North Carolina by Eastern Band Cherokee artists, becoming the first arts and crafts cooperative founded by Native Americans in the US 1948: Allan Houser completes his first monumental sculpture at the Haskell Indian School in Lawrence, Kansas 1950s and 1960s: Maya weaving cooperatives established by the Mexican government 1957: West Baffin Eskimo Co-op Ltd., an Inuit graphic arts workshop, is founded by James Archibald Houston in Cape Dorset, Nunavut.