Paul Chaat Smith

Paul Smith was born in Texas, the son of Clodus and Pauline Rosalee (Chaat) Smith.{{cite book |last1=Smith |first1=Paul Chaat |title=Everything You Know about Indians is Wrong |date=2009 |publisher=University of Minnesota Press |location=Minneapolis |isbn=978-0-8166-5601-1 |page=165 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-tDOpRyljQ4C&q=Everything%20You%20Know%20about%20Indians%20Is%20Wrong&pg=PP1}}{{Cite journal |title=Pauline Rosalee Smith (obituary) |journal=The Oklahoman |publication-date=April 5, 2017 |pages=8A}} His mother Pauline Rosalee (née Chaat) (1928–2017) was Comanche.{{cite news |title=Pauline Smith |url=https://legacy.newsok.com/obituaries/oklahoman/obituary.aspx?pid=184822483 |access-date=12 December 2018 |work=The Oklahoman |date=4 April 2017}} His father Clodus R. Smith is Choctaw, and has served as president of several colleges.{{cite book |last1=Clark |first1=Blue |title=Indian Tribes of Oklahoma: A Guide |date=2009 |publisher=University of Oklahoma Press |location=Norman |isbn=978-0-806140612 |page=118 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-REv0Se_aR8C&q=Indian+Tribes+of+Oklahoma&pg=PP1 |chapter=Choctaw}} Paul's grandfather was Rev. Dr. Robert Paul Chaat, Sr., President of the National Fellowship of Indian Workers. {{Cite web |date= |title=Group at the Regional Conference of Indian Fellowship, Madison, Wisconsin. 1937 |url=http://lindquist.cul.columbia.edu:443/catalog/burke_lindq_046_0612 |access-date=21 Nov 2022 |website=G.E.E Lindquist Native American Photographs; The Burke Library Archives at Columbia University |publisher=Columbia University Libraries}}

After Texas, the family moved to Ithaca, New York. In 1959 they moved to Maryland and next to Cleveland, Ohio. Paul's parents were both dedicated to education. They created the Clodus and Pauline (Chaat) Smith American Indian Scholarship at Cameron University in Lawton, Oklahoma.

Smith has been an associate curator for the National Museum of the American Indian since 2001. In 2004, he was responsible for setting up the museum's permanent history gallery.Lonetree, Amy and Amanda Cobb. [https://books.google.com/books?id=7hFh1-xwb5EC&dq=Paul%20Chaat%20Smith%20NMAI%20permanent%20history&pg=PA454 The National Museum of the American Indian: Critical Conversations.] Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2008. {{ISBN|978-0-8032-1111-7}}, p. 454 He curated the ten-year exhibit Americans that opened in 2017.[https://walkerart.org/magazine/paul-chaat-smith-jimmie-durham-americans-nmai-smithsonian "The Most American Thing Ever Is in Fact American Indians"], Primer. 20 Sept 2017. Accessed 27 Aug 2020.

In 2005, Smith worked with fellow curator Truman Lowe (Ho-Chunk) to sponsor and produce an exhibition by performance and installation artist James Luna at the 51st Venice Biennale, which included a performance dedicated to Pablo Tac.[http://artdaily.com/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=22856#.Uw9vZl4lM70 "James Luna's "Emendatio" Opens in New York"], Art Daily. 7 Jan 2008. Accessed 27 Feb 2014.

In 2008 and 2009, he organized a major retrospective for Fritz Scholder, called Fritz Scholder: Indian/Not Indian.

In 2009 and 2010, Smith produced a show for Canadian artist Brian Jungen, called Strange Comfort.National Museum of the American Indian website: [http://nmai.si.edu/exhibitions/jungen/credits.html "Jungen Show Credits"]

Smith has worked to promote the work of many other Native American and Aboriginal Canadian artists, including Richard Ray Whitman, Faye HeavyShield, and Kent Monkman.Benson, Al. [http://www.triblocal.com/aurora/community/stories/2010/10/comanche-author-essayist-curator-to-speak-at-aurora-u-nov-4/ "Comanche author, essayist, curator to speak at Aurora U. Nov. 4"], TribLocal Aurora. 18 Oct 2010. Accessed 27 Feb 2014.

Smith is the author, with Robert Allen Warrior (Osage), of Like a Hurricane: The Indian Movement from Alcatraz to Wounded Knee (1996). This account of American Indian activism "has already become a classic and essential interpretive work".Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz, The Great Sioux Nation (University of Nebraska Press, 1977, p. 13) p. viii The book focuses on three pivotal events in Native American activism, the 1969 Occupation of Alcatraz, the 1972 Trail of Broken Treaties to Washington, DC, and subsequent takeover of the Department of Interior headquarters, when the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) offices were occupied; and the 1973 Wounded Knee Occupation at Pine Ridge Reservation.[http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-56584-316-5 Like a Hurricane.] Publishers Weekly. 1 Aug 1996. Accessed 26 Feb 2014.

He put together his humorous but informative book, Everything You Know about Indians Is Wrong (2009), over 16 years. The book is described by its publisher, University of Minnesota Press, as essays that combine "memoir and commentary."{{cite web|url=https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/everything-you-know-about-indians-is-wrong|title=Overview: Everything You Know about Indians Is Wrong (2009)|work=Book Division| publisher=University of Minnesota Press|date=2011–2020|access-date=9 May 2020}}

Smith has lectured at such institutions as the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC and the Getty Center in Los Angeles.[http://hemisphericinstitute.org/hemi/en/enc05-roundtables/item/1406-enc05-indigenous-art?tmpl=component&print=1 "Indigenous Art and Museums."] Hemispheric Institute. Accessed 27 Feb 2014. He served as an academic advisor for the PBS series, We Shall Remain, Episode 5: Wounded Knee.[https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/weshallremain/behind_the_scenes/episode_5_cast_bios "We Shall Remain, Episode 5: Wounded Knee."] NMPBS. Accessed 26 Feb 2014.

Paul Chaat Smith's sister, Marti Chaatsmith (Comanche-Choctaw), is the associate director of the Newark Earthworks Center at Ohio State University, Newark.{{cite web |title=Marti Chaatsmith |url=https://americanindianstudies.osu.edu/people/chaatsmith.1 |website=American Indian Studies |publisher=The Ohio State University |access-date=11 December 2018}} She is dedicated to preserving Ohio's pre-Columbian earthworks constructed by ancient Native Americans.

• Everything You Know about Indians Is Wrong (University of Minnesota Press, 2009) {{ISBN|978-0-8166-5601-1}}.
• With Robert Allen Warrior, Like a Hurricane: The Indian Movement from Alcatraz to Wounded Knee (The New Press, 1997) {{ISBN|978-1-56584-402-5}}.

{{Reflist}}

• {{Official website|http://www.paulchaatsmith.com/}}
• [http://www.banffcentre.ca/faculty/faculty-member/4051/paul-chaat-smith/ "Faculty Biography"] at Banff Centre
• [https://omeka.binghamton.edu/omeka/items/show/1168 Interview with Paul Chaat Smith] by Stephen McKiernan, Binghamton University Libraries Center for the Study of the 1960s

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Category:Native American curators

Category:American curators

Category:American people of Choctaw descent

Category:Native American writers

Category:Comanche people

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Category:Year of birth missing (living people)

Category:National Museum of the American Indian